Thousands of organic chemicals have been synthesized and commercialized for industrial and consumer uses. However, an increasing number of organic chemicals are revealed to be “hazardous” because of their potential adverse environmental and/or health effects. The project seeks to identify the primary route(s) that humans take up these organic substances, e.g., use of personal care products, through inhalation of contaminated indoor air and dust, or consumption of contaminated animal- and vegetable-based food.

Conflicts between humans and black bears in urban settings challenge the wellbeing of both human communities and black bear populations. As human urban communities develop and expand into areas with bears present, conflicts between humans and bears may also increase. It is important to utilize available tools such as education and regulatory bylaws to reduce the number of black bear conflicts and resultant number of black bears killed in response.

Wetlands provide important ecosystem services to human communities, such as groundwater recharge, storing floodwater, and supplying fishery resources. In Alberta, wetlands cover ~21% of the province, forming one of the Canada’s largest wetlands reserves; however, many of these wetlands have been impacted or lost through human activities. Over the past 30 years, there have been efforts made by the government and partner agencies to restore wetlands, but little is known about the rate of recovery and the state of these restored wetlands, relative to a natural reference condition..

The emerging emissions trading market provides the province of Alberta an opportunity to diversify its economy and drive climate change mitigation innovation. By improving the carbon credit generating efficiency, more economic opportunities and carbon sequestration industrial applications become feasible. The City of Calgary Dewatered Biosolids Land Application - Willow Biomass and Marginal Land Reclamation Demonstration Project represents part of the first wave of large-scale biologically driven greenhouse gas mitigation innovation.

The Arctic environment is changing rapidly, and this change may influence the health of organisms that live there, such as belugas. In periods of low sea ice extent, belugas in the Beaufort Sea showed altered expression genes involved in various aspects of health. Further, polychlorinated biphenyls, contaminants of concern, were also associated with altered gene expression. These results indicate that climate change and contaminants are playing a role in the health of beluga whales.

Understanding the impacts of human-driven disturbance on carnivore communities is an important step for prioritizing conservation decisions and managing land-use policies. Disturbances such as landscape development may influence how species structure their activity periods over the 24-hour cycle and potentially compromise the capacity for competitors to avoid costly encounters with each other. Few studies to date have investigated how landscape disturbance impacts species’ behaviour and interactions across time, and the potential ramifications on community-level biodiversity and structure.

In order to meet global climate change goals, it is necessary for consumers to shift their preferences for products towards more sustainable and eco-friendly options. Two common barriers that consumers experience when purchasing green products are: 1) perceived difficulty of buying green, and 2) skepticism about the quality of green brands. Avocado Co-op is attempting to address these barriers by offering a service that delivers member-tested sustainable household products direct to the consumer.

Marine fisheries are complex, multifaceted endeavors that are deeply interconnected with both the ecological and social systems within which they operate. To manage a given fishery resource effectively, practitioners have account in the past years for ecological interactions with other marine species and socio-economic interactions with commercial and subsistence harvesters.

Repercussions of conventional large-scale agriculture have been seen in the form of environmental damage and biodiversity loss. There are sustainable alternatives; however, due to the current agricultural system there are barriers to scaling them out. By utilizing aspects of transition management, these limitations can be identified and frameworks can be built to address them. This is all done in the hopes of transitioning the conventional agricultural system to one that is sustainable.

This project focuses on physical and biological elements of small tidally influenced marsh channels on Swishwash Island in the central arm of the Lower Fraser River Estuary. In addition to fish data; marine invertebrate, vegetation, sediment, and toporgraphic data will also be collected and analyzed. This will provide insight into the practise of monitoring tide channels pre and post restoration and provide a basis for future monitoring and restoration efforts.