Implementing landscape connectivity assessment for biodiversity management and land-use planning in Alberta

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Sustainability is a core value for the public in Canada and globally. Planning for ecological sustainability must go beyond protecting land (including both, native and managed landscapes), it must also ensure that animals and other organisms can move between protected areas, so as to maintain viable and genetically diverse populations with the potential to adapt to climate change. Connectivity refers to the degree to which the landscape facilitates such movement of organisms and their genes. Hence, connectivity planning is a key aspect of sustainable land-use planning: the way in which economic development outside of protected areas is implemented and mitigated is crucial for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services. By removing barriers identified by implementers, this project will lead to the integration of connectivity planning in areas undergoing rapid land-use change through urban and industrial development, highways, and cultivation. This is essential for sustainable land-use planning and for ensuring that the public investment leads to a protected area network effective at maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services. In collaboration with the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI), our research team already developed a set of general-purpose connectivity models for the province of Alberta from human footprint data, validated them with biodiversity monitoring data for mammals, birds, plants, soil mites, lichens, and mosses, and identified a general-use model that best represents connectivity for a broad range of terrestrial species. Building on these results, the NSERC Alliance project has three goals: integrating connectivity assessment with planning methods, building in-house capacity for implementers to perform local connectivity assessments, and clarifying the interpretation and limitations of general-use connectivity maps. The proposed approach can be used to visualize the impact of alternative planning scenarios on connectivity to support a participatory planning process, where end-users, such as citizen groups, Indigenous Peoples and NGOs, are involved in making decisions that are grounded in science and incorporate Indigenous knowledge and local perspectives.