Disturbance Data Comparison and Assessment and Restoration Plan Optimization

The Recovery Strategy for Woodland Caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), Boreal Population, in Canada (2012) identified the need to maintain a target of 65 % undisturbed habitat within each caribou range, implying restoration of disturbed forest is a key response. This project’s objective was to prioritize townships for restoration of caribou habitat in NE Alberta. The study area included five caribou ranges (Red Earth, Richardson, West Side Athabasca River, East Side Athabasca River, and Cold Lake), subdivided into townships for analysis. In the first phase of the project, townships were classified into five Zones of decreasing priority and percent of disturbed habitat was tracked as restoration of each Zone was simulated. In the second phase of the project, four additional analyses were done: (1) townships were prioritized so rankings occur within each caribou range; (2) proportion of disturbed habitat was calibrated so disturbance values are based on the same scale as measured by Environment Canada (EC), with and without fire; (3) the restoration of semi-permanent footprints were included in addition to seismic lines; and (4) alternate criteria of weighting economic values and habitat values were considered.

(1) By stratifying prioritization in each caribou range, high priority townships were spread evenly across landscape/ranges, instead of concentrating in areas with more caribou and less disturbances, which is more in line with aim of conserving ALL caribou ranges; (2) calibrating ABMI’s Wall-to-Wall human footprint mapping to EC’s Landsat imagery revealed EC significantly and consistently underestimated disturbance. This was expected due to different data resolutions and is important to understand for future range planning; (3) when feasibility of restoring all semi-permanent features (not just seismic lines) was considered, four of five caribou ranges met target when not including fire as disturbance: if calibrated to EC’s data, all five ranges met 35% disturbance threshold. These results suggest a working landscape with both resource industry and caribou is possible. Inclusion of fire when calculating % disturbance reduced restoration benefit; however, many larger fire sites are almost 40 years old, so disturbance values will drop naturally within a decade; (4) inverse weighting was applied to resource valuation, which was multiplied by gain in undisturbed habitat (GIU). These analyses can be used to help optimize restoration schedules for seismic lines and other semi-permanent human footprint types.