Estimating and Monitoring the Long-Term Growth and Productivity of Boreal Forests on Reclaimed Oil Sands Sites: Preliminary Results and Future Outlook

• Activity Number: 140
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 4, 2014 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics and the Environment
• Author(s): Shongming Huang*+ and Brad Pinno and Robert Vassov and Bradley Tomm and Yuqing Yang
• Companies: Alberta Environment & Sustainable Resource Development and Canadian Forest Service and Shell Canada Energy, Shell Albian Sands and Natural Resources Canada and Alberta Environment & Sustainable Resource Development
• Keywords: forest growth ; oil sands ; reclamation ; monitoring ; site index

Abstract

Alberta is the largest supplier of oil to the U.S. Oil sands mining companies in Alberta are required to use effective conservation and reclamation measures to ensure that land disturbed in oil sands mining is reclaimed to achieve an equivalent capability to what was present prior to mining. It is crucial that in areas designed to support forests, the productivity of the forests is maintained. Site index is the most common metric in forest models for assessing the long-term growth and productivity of forests. Comparing undisturbed natural site index with post-reclamation site index is an important component of demonstrating equivalent forest growth and productivity on pre- and post-reclamation sites. Based on tree sectioning data from 60 plots at 20 of the oldest reclaimed sites that cover three main boreal tree species, detailed stem analysis is performed. Preliminary results show that site index and post-reclamation growth of all three species are comparable to those on undisturbed natural sites. Future outlook of this study in terms of collecting additional data, performing further analyses and monitoring the long-term outcome on reclaimed landscapes, is discussed.