Native Prairie and Parkland Conservation in Alberta: Initiatives by … AIA Large... · Maintaining...
Transcript of Native Prairie and Parkland Conservation in Alberta: Initiatives by … AIA Large... · Maintaining...
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Native Prairie and Parkland Conservation in Alberta: Initiatives by the Alberta Prairie
Conservation Forum
Maintaining Large Native Prairie and Parkland Landscapes
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Maintaining Large Native Prairie
and Parkland Landscapes
• The grassland and parkland regions continue to experience pressure from land use change.
• These landscapes are home to 80% of the species at risk in Alberta
• Provide important wildlife habitat, biodiversity values, carbon sequestion
• Important for first nations traditional uses and ranching
• Decision makers need defensible and accurate information to support land use decisions that:
• View the native prairie landscape in Alberta as a as a valued asset.
• Builds a case to support initiatives such as:
• Payment for ecosystem services, on private lands
• Biodiversity conservation,
• Ensuring intact native grassland
for wildlife habitat and other ecosystem services
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Overview:
State of the Prairie
State of the Prairie – TimeScan Pilot
Results and Implications
Status of Biodiversity in the Prairie
and Parkland Regions of Alberta
Questions and Round Table
questions
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State of the Prairie
Project initiated in February 2017 with PCF leadership and AF, EP and retired technical experts
Objectives:
• To compare and utilize recent land cover imagery and inventories vs. older versions to develop products on current, & past, state; & rates of change.
Gathered together available Grassland and Land Cover Inventories:
• Native Prairie Vegetation Inventory (NPVI) 1990-1993
• PFRA’s: Land Cover of the Prairies 1995
• AFSC’s: Agricultural Land Cover Classification 2006
• AAFC’s: Annual Crop Inventory 2016
• EP’s Grassland Vegetation Inventory (GVI) Started 2006 Completed 2013
• ABMI Wall to Wall 2000 and 2010,
• Central Parkland Vegetation Inventory etc.
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State of the Prairie
Gathered available Grassland and Land Cover Inventories:
• Native Prairie Vegetation Inventory (NPVI) 1990-1993
• PFRA’s: Land Cover of the Prairies 1995
• AFSC’s: Agricultural Land Cover Classification 2006
• AAFC’s: Annual Crop Inventory 2016
• EP’s Grassland Vegetation Inventory (GVI) Started 2006 Completed 2013
• ABMI Wall to Wall 2000 and 2010,
• Central Parkland Vegetation Inventory etc.
• Initial re-classification of data to a consistent set of cover classes. A second reclassification to match those contained NPVI
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Evaluation & Summary Process
Reclassify Pixels to
State of the Prairie
(SOTP) six
Standard Cover
Classes % Native Prairie
summarized on
a quarter by
quarter section
basis
Reclassify SOTP
Pixels to a more
General Native
Prairie Class
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State of the Prairie TimeScan
• Pilot project to test new remote
sensing approaches using
TimeScan temporal statistics
from the German Aerospace
Centre (DLR) contracted with
Maapera Analytics Inc.
• TimeScan temporal statistics
generated by DLR for all of
Alberta for time frames 1984-
2016 in 3year groupings.
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TimeScan/GVI Classification
TimeScan Map Codes GVI codes
1 Wetland temporary, seasonal, alkali and semi-permanent to permanent 1-4, 10 Lentic Wetland temporary, seasonal, alkali and semi-permanent to permanent, lotic herbaceous
2 Open Water 5-6 Open water lakes, rivers
3 Woody vegetation coniferous, deciduous and shrubs 7-9 Lotic Coniferous, deciduous and shrub
4 Native Upland High grassland Cover 11-18 Subirrigated, overflow, clayey, loamy, sandy, limy, sand, blowouts / solonetzic
5 Native Upland Moderate grassland Cover 21, 23 Shallow to gravel, gravel
6 Native Upland Low grassland Cover 19-20, 22 Choppy sandhills, thin breaks, saline lowland
7 Bedrock, baresoils and impervious surfaces low to no grassland cover 24 Badlands and bedrock
8 Crop high variation between dense vegetative cover and semi- to exposed soils, moderate to high moisture
25 Crop Irrigated
9 Crop high variation between moderate vegetative cover and semi-exposed to soils, moderate to low moisture
26 Crop non-irrigated
10 Pasture low variation between dense vegetative cover and semi-exposed to soils, high to moderate moisture
27 Tame Pasture or Hay Irrigated
11 Pasture low variation between moderate vegetative cover and semi-exposed to soils, moderate to low moisture
28 Tame Pasture or Hay non-irrigated
12 Mixed urban 31 Urban
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Prairie Time Scan Results
Red Deer River
Lake Newell
Classification maps: w112-n51 w111-n50
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TimeScan Results
3 year time frame classification maps
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Inventory Comparison
TimeScan and Traditional Satellite
Image
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Change Comparison
TimeScan Vs Inventory
Region Change 1995 - 2016 (100 km2)* Loss No Change Gain
Grassland 19 25 1
Parkland 53 20 0
Region Change 1997 - 2015 (100 km2)*
Loss No Change Gain
Grassland 97 79 3
Parkland 26 54 2
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Take Away Messages on Results
• Overall change in land use in native grassland and Parkland over time
• Grassland
• Parkland
• New approaches to quantify extent and change over time are necessary and can be cost effective
• Innovative approaches are needed to help maintain large native grassland and parkland landscapes
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Prairie Time Scan Collaborators
• German Aerospace Center (DLR) &
Maapera Inc.
• Thomas Esch
• Uta Heiden
• Derek Rogge
• Preston Sorenson
PCF Steering Committee:
• Ron McNeil
• Ian Dyson
• Karen Raven
• Barry Adams
• Agriculture and Forestry (AF),
Environment and Parks (EP) and PCF
Technical Team:
• Livio Fent
• Ed Karpuk
• Oriano Castelli
• Patrick Wensveen
• David Spiess
• David Hildebrand
• Javed Iqbal
Other Collaborators:
• Shane Patterson AEP
• Anne Smith AAFC
• Corrina Copp ABMI
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Status of Biodiversity in the Prairie and
Parkland Regions of Alberta
Report commissioned by
the PCF with the Alberta
Biodiversity Monitoring
Institute
To provide an evaluation
on the status of
biodiversity in Prairie and
Parkland Alberta and
Biodiversity status of high
value landscapes as
identified by the PCF
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Status of Biodiversity in the Prairie and
Parkland Regions of Alberta
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1999 - 2015 Trend of Human Footprint in Grassland
Natural Region of AB (ABMI 2018)
Human
Footprint Type 1999 (%) 2015 (%) Change (%)
Total Human
Footprint 54.82 57.10 + 2.28
Agriculture 48.39 49.60 + 1.21
Energy 1.49 2.45 + 0.96
Forestry 0.00 0.00 0.00
Human-created
Water Bodies 0.78 0.89 + 0.11
Transportation 2.45 2.73 + 0.28
Urban/Industrial 1.18 1.47 + 0.29
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Status of Biodiversity in the Prairie and
Parkland Regions
Areas of high native
biodiversity values Predicted intactness
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http://www.albertapcf.org
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Round Table
Questions 1. Identify strategies to maintain native
prairie and support biodiversity
• On private lands
• On public lands