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

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Remotely Sensed Caribou Habitat Indicators for Enhancing Baseline Information Preparedness for Resource Development in Canada’s North Wenjun Chen 1 , Jan Z. Adamczewski 2 , Bruno Croft 2 , Lori White 1,3 , Sylvain Leblanc 1 , Kerri Garner 4 , Adeline Football 4 , Jody S. Pellissey 5 , & Boyan Tracz 5 1 CCRS, NRCan 2 ENR, GNWT 3 Wildlife Landscape, EC 4 Tlicho Government 5 Wek'èezhìi Renewable Resources Board

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Background  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 feet 3 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 of 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

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS 600 Bathusrt Caribou population (,000) 500 400 300 200 100 0 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 Year

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Mines in Bathurst habitat

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Diavik Diamond Ekati Diamond Lupin Gold Snap Lake Diamond

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Challenges to assess resource development’s impacts on caribou  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

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS 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

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Areas directly affected by a mining operation, e.g., Landsat time series over the Ekati mine in the Bathurst range Ikonos image 2000 1989 1994 1999

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS 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

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Field measurement biomass in Bathurst habitat Community-based monitoring of seasonal changes in vegetation height and % cover

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Caribou movement and distribution driven by leaf biomass gradients Jul11-20 Jun21-30 Jun11-20 Jul1-10 2011 Oct1-10 Oct11-20 Oct21-30 Sep21-30

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Caribou phenology vs. plant phenology

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS 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

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS 80 1.6 Late-winter CC ratio 70 1.2 SRCI Late-winter calf:cow ratio (%) 60 0.8 50 0.4 SRCI 5m 40 0 30 -0.4 20 -0.8 10 0 -1.2 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 Year SRCI 5m 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

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Upper envelop approach 60 Late-winter calf:cow ratio in year i (%) 50 40 30 20 10 0 -1.2 -1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 Min(SRCI 5m ( i -1), SRCI 5m ( i -2))

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Analog for development impact 60 Late-winter calf:cow ratio in year i (%) Deterioration in summer range conditions 50 40 Reduction in caribou productivity 30 20 10 Relationship between SRCI & caribou productivity 0 -1.2 -1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 MIN(SRCI 5m ( i -1), SRCI 5m ( i -2))

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS 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

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS 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).

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing - ESS Acknowledgement NWT CIMP NRCan GNWT Tlicho G. Wek'èezhìi RRB Wekweeti Carleton U. Questions?