and southern communities. The construction of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam on the upper Peace River has
significantly altered the flow regime of the Slave River, with lower flood peaks in summer and higher
discharges in winter. These changes in the flow regime have modified the ice cover characteristics during
winter and spring, and could potentially lead to hazards such as loss of biodiversity, seasonal flooding
and drought for the Slave River communities and environment. The freeze-up and break-up processes
of ice covers along the Slave River have been recently documented by Das et al. [6] and Lindenschmidt
and Das [20], respectively. However, the automated monitoring algorithm that was proposed for the
Slave River ice cover, particularly during freeze-up and ice cover progression, has not yet been developed.
To understand and, consequently, quickly respond to the negative impacts of ice regime changes, it is
imperative to develop a classification scheme, as well as to periodically monitor both freeze-up and
break-up processes along the Slave River. Radar data can be acquired at relatively fine resolutions and
operated in the microwave range, which circumvents the effect of haze and cloud cover and provides
potential opportunities for development of valuable automatic and periodic river-ice monitoring tools