Drivers, pressures, and state responses to inform long-term oil sands wetland monitoring program objectives

Abstract

Boreal peatlands provide numerous ecosystem services ranging from carbon sequestration to the provisioning of habitat for species integral to Indigenous communities. In the Oil Sands Region of Alberta, Canada, human development related to oil and gas extraction occurs in a wetland-dominated landscape. Wetland monitoring programs can determine the extent to which development impacts wetlands, but existing monitoring programs focus on characterizing biodiversity across the region and on compliance and regulatory monitoring that assumes impacts from oil sands development do not extend past lease boundaries. This is unlikely to be true since some impacts, such as particulate deposition, can extend over large areas contingent on local weather and topography. To inform the development of a new regional wetland monitoring program to assess the cumulative effects of oil sands development on wetlands, we synthesized information on the scope of wetland research across the Oil Sands Region, including the anthropogenic stressors that impact wetlands and the wetland characteristics sensitive to different disturbances. We developed a conceptual model linking human development with wetland ecology in the region to make explicit the relationships among oil sands development stressors and different components of wetland ecosystems. By highlighting testable relationships, this conceptual model can be used as a collection of hypotheses to identify knowledge gaps and to guide future research priorities. relationships among We found that the majority of studies are short-term (77% were ≤ 5 years) and are conducted over a limited spatial extent (82% were sub-regional). Studies of reclaimed wetlands were relatively common (18% of all tests); disproportionate to the occurrence of this wetland type. Results from these studies likely cannot be extrapolated to other wetlands in the region. Nevertheless, the impacts of tailings contaminants, wetland reclamation activities, and surface water chemistry are well-represented in the literature. Research on other types of land disturbance is lacking. A coordinated, regional monitoring program is needed to gain a complete understanding of the direct and indirect impacts of human development in the region and to address remaining knowledge gaps.

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

“…were included even if they were wetland habitat specialists, whereas aquatic taxa (including amphibians) were included in the accompanying surface water review (Arciszewski et al, 2021 ). A recent review of wetland literature from the OSR has also been completed by Ficken et al ( 2021 ), separate from this Special Series. Artificial divisions of holistic ecosystems (e.g., into terrestrial, aquatic, and air themes) compromise interpretability to some extent, but they are pragmatic; they reflect the thematic divisions of current monitoring efforts in the OSR and parallel natural divisions in expertise among scientists and authors.…”

Oil Sands Wetland Ecosystem Monitoring Program Indicators in Alberta, Canada: Transitioning from Pilot to Long-Term Monitoring

“…(2) Are changes in wetlands affecting Indigenous health and well-being, culture use, and rights? Initial efforts to address these questions synthesized the scope of wetland research in the OSR, including the natural and anthropogenic pressures that impact wetlands and wetland characteristics sensitive to disturbances to develop a conceptual model of the study system [21]. These questions were the focus during the initial development of a conceptual model that was used to identify oil sands development pressures and anticipate wetland ecosystem responses, which formed a collection of hypotheses to guide the wetland monitoring program.…”

“…Further, this conceptual model formed the foundation from which to identify wetland indicators that are known or predicted to be sensitive to oil sands development pressures, where an indicator is a characteristic "state" of the environment that quantifies the magnitude of stress, habitat characteristics, degree of exposure, or degree of ecological response to a pressure [22]. It has been noted that multiple pressures relate to changes in a single ecosystem state (e.g., vegetation abundance [21]); therefore, the ability to adequately measure changes in an ecosystem state is an important prerequisite to determine the source(s) of these changes (e.g., oil sands-related pressure(s)); the latter is deemed out of scope in this study.…”

Global Peatlands Assessment: The State of the World’s Peatlands - Evidence for Action toward the Conservation, Restoration, and Sustainable Management of Peatlands

“…Furthermore, closure plans do not address the cumulative effects of multiple mines. In addition, monitoring to assess ongoing impacts is notoriously problematic in this region (Cronmiller and Noble 2018;Ficken et al 2022) and absolute footprint metrics quoted in Table 7.3 are likely not accurate (Cronmiller and Noble 2018;Ficken et al 2022).…”