Reclamation Wetlands Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI)

In 2016, Canadian Natural initiated a pilot project to adopt a monitoring tool developed by the Bayley Lab at the University of Alberta on a number of natural and reclamation wetlands at Horizon. Data derived from this project will be used to understand the development of reclamation marshes over time, as well as tie into existing data collection within the same wetlands that are being studied by the reclamation wildlife monitoring program at Horizon. The monitoring tool is called the Reclamation Wetland Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) and it characterizes the range of natural variability and the extent of degradation that an ecosystem exhibits, based on data collected from a range of disturbed and undisturbed sites. Wetlands will be plotted on a disturbance graph so that changes in biotic and abiotic stress can be monitored over time.

The Wetland IBI uses vegetation to measure abiotic and abiotic stress. It is rapid and easy to employ and teach, and results can be tracked over time to understand how wetlands are responding to stressors. However, vegetation alone cannot paint a complete picture of wetland health, and it is unclear what actions can (or should) be taken to rectify stresses flagged with these methods. Also, the original program’s pass/fail criteria are not relevant because they are not tied to certification criteria or provincial wetland policies (the IBI program pre-dates the current Alberta Wetland Policy), but instead represent +/- 1 SD from mean of natural reference wetlands. This seems a logical way to understand how a reclaimed wetland’s health compares to natural wetlands, but the differences between these wetland types are too large to ignore, and represent a severe bias in comparison. All in all, this program can empower operators to evaluate certain aspects of reclamation wetlands, and could be used as part of future monitoring efforts designed within a more appropriate regulatory and operational context.