Biography

I studied geography and biology at Queen’s University at Kingston, and geography and environmental studies at the University of Toronto. Before coming to Carleton, I was a faculty member at the University of Toronto for a year, and worked on several research projects there in addition to my doctoral studies. This included projects examining soil erosion and environmental decision support systems in the Loess Plateau region of China, and evaluation of potential forest nitrogen saturation and lake acidification in the Adirondack region of New York State.

Here at Carleton, I have joined the Geomatics and Landscape Ecology Laboratory. I am continuing a long term study to evaluate and improve techniques to predict and measure productivity patterns in natural grasslands, under both “known” conditions and climate change scenarios. Another project is developing methods to measure and classify Canada’s forest inventory. I am currently investigating new research opportunities in Eastern Ontario and Western Québec, under the general theme of how the integration of new sources of data and understanding can alter our ability to monitor and predict ecosystem behaviour.

Research Interests

• Uncertainty in environmental modelling and monitoring
• Geographic Information Systems, decision support, and model interfaces
• Carbon cycling and landscape productivity patterns, especially in semi-arid areas

•  ENST 1001 [Envisioning Earth’s Environments]
• GEOM 2007 [Geographic Information Systems]
• GEOM 4008 [Advanced Topics in Geographic Information Systems]

 Recent Publications

Eberhardt, Ewen,  Scott Mitchell, and Lenore Fahrig. 2009. Current and probable past wildlife fatality hotspots on the Thousand Islands Parkway, Ontario, Canada. In Lees, B.G. & Laffan, S.W. (eds), 10th International Conference on GeoComputation, UNSW, Sydney, November-December, 2009. 

Mitchell, Scott ,W., Tarmo Remmel, Ferenc Csillag, and Michael Wulder 2008. ‘Distance to second cluster as a measure of classification confidence’ Remote Sensing of Environment 112: 2615-2626.

Wulder, Michael A., Joanne C. White, Joan E. Luther, Guy Strickland, Tarmo K. Remmel, and Scott W. Mitchell. 2006. Use of vector polygons for the accuracy assessment of pixel-based land cover maps. Canadian J Remote Sensing 32(3): 268-279.

Mitchell, Scott W., Ferenc Csillag, and Christina Tague. 2005. Impacts of spatial model definition on prediction uncertainty of spatial environmental models: grassland productivity in Grasslands National Park, Canada. Transactions in GIS 9(3): 421-442.

Remmel, Tarmo K., Ferenc Csillag, Scott Mitchell, and Michael A. Wulder. 2005. Integration of forest inventory and satellite imagery: a Canadian status assessment and research issues. Forest Ecology and Management 207: 405-428.

Mitchell, Scott W., and F. Csillag. 2001. Assessing the stability and uncertainty of predicted vegetation growth under climatic variability: northern mixed grass prairie. Ecological Modelling, 139: 101-121.

Csillag, F., M. Kertész, A. Davidson, and S. Mitchell. 2001. On the measurement of diversity-productivity relationships in a northern mixed grass prairie (Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan, Canada). Community Ecology 2(2): 145-159.

Graduate Supervisions

We are conducting a wide range of projects in spatial analysis and environmental processes; please consult our lab web pages  for more details.