Remotely Sensed Caribou Habitat Indicators for Enhancing Baseline - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Remotely Sensed Caribou Habitat Indicators for Enhancing Baseline Information Preparedness for Resource Development in Canada’s North

Wenjun Chen1, Jan Z. Adamczewski2, Bruno Croft2, Lori White1,3, Sylvain Leblanc1, Kerri Garner4, Adeline Football4, Jody

• S. Pellissey5, & Boyan Tracz5

1 CCRS, NRCan 2 ENR, GNWT 3 Wildlife Landscape, EC 4 Tlicho Government 5 Wek'èezhìi Renewable

Resources Board

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 Natural resources form a cornerstone of the Canadian economy, ~15% Canada’s GDP in 2011. The natural resource potential in Canada’s North is exceptional: at least 8.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil, 163 trillion feet3 of recoverable natural gas, and over $40 billion in planned new mining developments  Caribou have played a important role in northern aboriginal people’s economy, culture, health, and way

• f life for thousands of years in North America

 Balancing “resource development & caribou protection” is arguably one of the biggest and long- standing issues of policy making and governance in Canada Arctic

Background

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100 200 300 400 500 600 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 Bathusrt Caribou population (,000) Year

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Mines in Bathurst habitat

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Diavik Diamond Snap Lake Diamond Lupin Gold Ekati Diamond

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• Resource development is one of many factors that

might affect caribou population (e.g., habitat, harvest, predators, diseases/parasites, insects, climate, extreme weather, pollution)

• Caribou population change is a long-term process; its

impact assessment requires long-term data, many of which are not available

• With significant social-economic implication, all

materials related to an assessment are likely subject to legal challenge and public scrutiny

• Assessment of resource development’s cumulative

impacts on caribou is extremely complex; current debate is largely based on emotion, not on information

Challenges to assess resource development’s impacts on caribou

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An impartial and verifiable satellite- based method?

Resource developments cause no direct mortality except in extreme rare cases. They might affect caribou population change through altering environment due to areas directly and indirectly (zone of influence, ZOI) affected by mining operation

• Area directly disturbed, quantifiable with R/S time

series and GIS

• ZOI quantification: some estimated at 14 km, others

doubt its existence

• ZOI mechanisms: unknown; will conduct field survey,

remote sensing, and TK questionnaire on changes in vegetation composition/availability, noise, visibility, dust on forage, and soil PH along distance from mine

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1989 1999 1994

Areas directly affected by a mining

• peration, e.g., Landsat time series over

the Ekati mine in the Bathurst range

Ikonos image 2000

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An impartial and verifiable satellite- based method? (2)

Resource developments might also alter caribou movement and distribution within ZOI

• Satellite collared cows’ GPS data available since 1996;

can be used to quantify caribou movement and distribution; but current sample size is small

• As an alternative, we may link caribou movement and

distribution with food availability (leaf biomass) gradients, to produce the general caribou movement and distribution database

• Caribou movement and distribution may be modified

within ZOI due to additional environmental changes

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Field measurement biomass in Bathurst habitat

Community-based monitoring of seasonal changes in vegetation height and % cover

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Caribou movement and distribution driven by leaf biomass gradients

Jun11-20 2011 Sep21-30 Jul11-20 Jul1-10 Jun21-30 Oct1-10 Oct21-30 Oct11-20

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Caribou phenology vs. plant phenology

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An impartial and verifiable satellite- based method? (3)

 Need to integrate the impacts of resource developments on environmental factors and caribou movement and distribution into a method that can estimate caribou population change  No established method exists  Alternatively, if a significant relationship between the natural variation in habitat conditions caused by inter- annual climate variability and caribou productivity can be established, then it may serve as an analog

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10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 Year Late-winter calf:cow ratio (%)

• 1.2
• 0.8
• 0.4

0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6 SRCI5m

Late-winter CC ratio SRCI

SRCI5m stands for summer range cumulative index, which integrates anomalies in SOS and EOS, leaf biomass post-calving and late fall, and mid-summer leaf N content

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10 20 30 40 50 60

• 1.2
• 1
• 0.8
• 0.6
• 0.4
• 0.2

0.2 Min(SRCI5m(i -1), SRCI5m(i -2)) Late-winter calf:cow ratio in year i (%)

Upper envelop approach

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10 20 30 40 50 60

• 1.2
• 1
• 0.8
• 0.6
• 0.4
• 0.2

0.2 Late-winter calf:cow ratio in year i (%) MIN(SRCI5m(i-1), SRCI5m(i-2))

Deterioration in summer range conditions Reduction in caribou productivity Relationship between SRCI & caribou productivity

Analog for development impact

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Conclusions

• Important to recognize that assessment of

cumulative impacts of resource developments on caribou is extremely complex, with many challenges and no quick fix

• Methods are needed for providing impartial and

verifiable information on various aspects of resource development’s impacts on caribou, including impacts on environmental changes, caribou movement and distribution, and population change

• Satellite technology could continue to play a

fundamental role for developing such a method

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List of relevant publications

• Chen, W., L. White, J.Z. Adamczewski, B. Croft, K. Garner, J.S. Pellissey, K. Clark, I. Olthof, R. Latifovic, and G.L.

Finstad, (2014). Assessing the impacts of summer range on Bathurst caribou’s productivity and abundance since 1985. Natural Resources, 5: 130-145.

• Chen, W., Foy, N., Olthof, I., Zhang, Y., Fraser, R., Latifovic, R., Poitevin, J., Zorn, P., McLennan, D. (2014). A

Biophysically-based and Objective Satellite Seasonality Observation Method for Applications over the Arctic. International Journal Remote Sensing, 35, 6742-6763.

• Chen, W., Russell, D.E., Gunn, A., Croft, B., Chen, W.R. , Fernandes, R., Zhao, H., Li, J., Zhang, Y., Koehler, K.,

Olthof, I., Fraser, R.H., Leblanc, S.G., Henry, G.R., White, R.G., & Finstad, G.L. (2013). Monitoring habitat condition changes during winter and pre-calving migration for Bathurst Caribou in northern Canada. Biodiversity, DOI:10.1080/14888386.2012.705110, 14: 36-44.

• Chen, W., Zorn, P., Chen, Z., Latifovic, R., Zhang, Y., Li, J., Quirouette, J., Olthof, I., Fraser, R., Mclennan, D.,

Poitevin, J., Stewart, H.M., & Sharma, R. (2013). Propagation of errors associated with scaling foliage biomass from field measurements to remote sensing data over a Canada’s northern national park. Remote Sensing of Environment, 130, 205-218.

• Chen, W., Foy, N., Olthof, I., Latifovic, R., Zhang, Y., Li, J., Fraser, R., Chen, Z., McLennan, D., Poitevin, J., Zorn, P.,

Quirouette, J., & Stewart, H.M. (2013). Evaluating and reducing errors in seasonal profiles of AVHRR vegetation indices over a Canadian northern national park using cloudiness index. International Journal Remote Sensing, 34(12), 4320–4343.

• Chen, W, Chen, W.R., Li, J., Zhang, Y., Fraser, R., Olthof, I., Leblanc, S., & Chen, Z. (2012). Mapping aboveground

and foliage biomass over the Porcupine caribou habitat in northern Yukon and Alaska using Landsat and JERS- 1/SAR data. In: Remote Sensing of Biomass: Principles and Applications, 231-252 (ed. T. Fatoyinbo), InTECH, ISBN 978-953-51-0313-4 (www.intechopen.com/articles/show/title).

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Questions? Acknowledgement

NWT CIMP NRCan GNWT Tlicho G.

Wek'èezhìi RRB

Wekweeti Carleton U.