Responsible roadmap: Informing road disturbance development decision-making in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region through process-based knowledge.

In the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) of Alberta, boreal peatland ecosystems are becoming increasingly fractionated by linear disturbances associated with resource exploration and subsequent extraction. Roads, for example, have the potential to alter peatlands through changes to flow regimes, runoff generation to downstream aquatic systems, and carbon sequestration. The heterogeneous geology in the AOSR causes a wide range of hydrological conditions and peatland types, and therefore peatlands may respond very differently to road development. However, hydrological studies of road impacts on peatlands in oil sands areas are rare. In this proposed research, we aim to better characterize the changes to the hydrology and carbon balance of a wide range of peatland types with varying watershed configurations. In doing so, this research will provide a better understanding the current hydrological state and carbon balance of northern peatlands that are currently affected by road development. The results generated in this study will also be applied to existing spatial datasets to help land managers in identifying peatlands that are at a particular risk to disturbance. InnoTech Alberta will benefit primarily through gaining access to this dataset regional-scale hydrological (groundwater and surface water) models for the AOSR, and would benefit from access to the local high-resolution data generated in my proposed study. Such data would be extremely useful for model calibration/validation, as well as upscaling and addressing wetland vulnerability from multiple stressors, an important objective of their work in the Oil Sands Monitoring program.

Faculty Supervisor:

Richard Petrone

Student:

Partner:

InnoTech Alberta

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

Environmental Science and Technology; Water; Oil and Gas

University:

University of Waterloo

Program: