Native Prairie and Parkland Conservation in Alberta: Initiatives by the Alberta Prairie

Conservation Forum

Maintaining Large Native Prairie and Parkland Landscapes

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Prairie Time Scan Results

Red Deer River

Lake Newell

Classification maps: w112-n51 w111-n50

TimeScan Results

3 year time frame classification maps

Inventory Comparison

TimeScan and Traditional Satellite

Image

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

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

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

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

Status of Biodiversity in the Prairie and

Parkland Regions of Alberta

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

Status of Biodiversity in the Prairie and

Parkland Regions

Areas of high native

biodiversity values Predicted intactness

http://www.albertapcf.org

Round Table

Questions 1. Identify strategies to maintain native

prairie and support biodiversity

• On private lands

• On public lands