A synthetic review of terrestrial biological research from the Alberta oil sands region: 10 years of published literature

Abstract

In the past decade, a large volume of peer‐reviewed papers has examined the potential impacts of oil and gas resource extraction in the Canadian oil sands (OS). A large proportion focuses on terrestrial biology: wildlife, birds, and vegetation. We provide a qualitative synthesis of the condition of the environment in the oil sands region (OSR) from 2009 to 2020 to identify gaps and progress cumulative effects assessments. Our objectives were to (1) qualitatively synthesize and critically review knowledge from the OSR; (2) identify consistent trends and generalizable conclusions; and (3) pinpoint gaps in need of greater monitoring or research effort. We visualize knowledge and terrestrial monitoring foci by allocating papers to a conceptual model for the OS. Despite a recent increase in publications, focus has remained concentrated on a few key stressors, especially landscape disturbance, and a few taxa of interest. Stressor and response monitoring is well represented, but direct monitoring of pathways (linkages between stressors and responses) is limited. Important knowledge gaps include understanding effects at multiple spatial scales, mammal health effects monitoring, focused monitoring of local resources important to Indigenous communities, and geospatial coverage and availability, including higher attribute resolution in human footprint, comprehensive land cover mapping, and up‐to‐date LiDAR coverage. Causal attribution based on spatial proximity to operations or spatial orientation of monitoring in the region is common but may be limited in the strength of inference that it provides. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:388–406. © 2021 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

Exploring the Influence of Industrial and Climatic Variables on Communities of Benthic Macroinvertebrates Collected in Streams and Lakes in Canada’s Oil Sands Region

“…The inferred influence of industrial activity via atmospheric deposition was, however, also likely accompanied by local effects associated with land disturbance. While common in the terrestrial literature [35], few studies examine the influence of this stressor on surface waters, e.g., [46,56,109], and at some locations, such as JP-L, land disturbance may also reflect occasional release of discharge waters [42]. While this work focused on identifying negative effects of industrial coefficients, unconstrained ENs suggest other possible effects of industry.…”

“…In multi-stressor environments, detecting impacts in biological organisms and identifying the causes are also primary goals of monitoring [29,30]. However, identifying causes may not always be straightforward in areas such as the OSR which are (1) rich in geological resources where exposures to CoCs from natural and industrial sources may co-occur, (2) where industrial activities can affect ecosystems through multiple effect pathways, (3) other anthropogenic stressors are present, and (4) predevelopment exposure scenarios may not be well-characterized [3,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. For example, in the OSR differences at sites adjacent to mines compared to upstream reference areas are often observed, but natural confounding effects can obscure the identification and tracking of any potential impacts of industrial development on biological indicators [8,34,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53].…”

An integrated knowledge synthesis of regional ambient monitoring in Canada's oil sands

“…We have reported on this review in this special series by organizing the material into overlapping environmental themes of atmospheric emissions and atmospheric deposition (Horb et al, 2021), surface water and aquatics , and terrestrial biology (Roberts et al, 2021b). We have also presented an introduction to environmental monitoring in the OSR (Dubé et al, 2021) and a critical review of ICBM programs (Beausoleil et al, 2021).…”

“…In this special series, we have expanded this model within several monitoring foci, including air (Horb et al, 2021), water , land (Roberts et al, 2021b), and ICBM (Beausoleil et al, 2021), prior to recombining these media-specific models into a programscale model that we also use to summarize monitoring effort. Note that the valued components identified in this program-scale conceptual model are an interpretation of community and ecosystem values, and are still being validated through ongoing dialog with Indigenous communities and other stakeholders in the OSR (Dubé et al, 2018).…”

“…If a paper considers a conceptual model component but finds no evidence for it, the paper is not included in the conceptual model in Figure 2. Although not all papers are represented on the conceptual model, summary tables reporting on key findings of each paper are provided in the Supporting Information for each of the individual theme papers in the series Beausoleil et al, 2021;Horb et al, 2021;Roberts et al, 2021b).…”