Page 168 - Mapping the Nation: Taking Climate Action

167 Labels of human impacts over an aerial image illustrate the kind of human activities that ABMI tracks. Image courtesy of the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute. and anyone interested. For everything it records, ABMI provides the raw data that anyone can search and download by species and habitat. In addition to data of what's on the land, ABMI has developed several province- wide data products about the land that can be explored using GIS. This includes map layers about soil and climate and a recently completed wetland inventory. "ABMI and Ducks Unlimited Canada developed a partnership and recently invited Alberta Environment and Parks to join us," Kariyeva said. "Together, we all work Fit for All Purposes From the oil and gas sector, AHFMP has gathered the footprint of more than 350,000 well pads and 308,000 kilometers of pipeline corridors. Users of ABMI data can examine these features to gain an unbiased picture of how humans have changed the land over time. The data supports all questions and eliminates the more nuanced record keeping of different domains, such as how a forest access road might be recorded. In the AHFMP database, evidence of the road will always remain, even if it is now unused and overgrown. "We work with stakeholders to see if we can incorporate their data," Kariyeva said. "If it's not possible or feasible, we reach out to subject matter experts to verify and validate our work." ABMI makes the data available for free in multiple formats to be explored and queried by domain experts, policy makers, toward one single wetland inventory that supports everybody's needs." Classifying Location Data to Ask Questions ABMI works to turn its data into knowledge through products such as the Status of Human Footprint in Alberta report. The data supports queries about the impacts of different industries on different types and classes of species. It's also used to perform cumulative-impact assessments for specific industries. A recent project assessed the impact of beef production on biodiversity in Alberta. Other projects take longer, such as monitoring caribou and rare animals in Alberta's boreal forest. In the ecological recovery realm, ABMI assesses regeneration of disturbed areas to understand how quickly the forest recovers after disturbance.