LANDSCAPE OVERVIEW

The rapid and simultaneous development of renewable energy, mining, and unconventional shale gas projects currently underway in Wester Canada epitomizes the difficult challenges of balancing development and conservation. The simultaneous development of dozens of industrial and energy projects creates a new challenge for land use planning, shifting evaluation requirements from evaluating local impacts of individual projects to consideration of networks of sites with cumulative, often compounding impacts across ecosystems. Landscape 5 will provide practical decision-support tools for formulating solutions for spatial planning of multiple forms of development that minimize cumulative impacts on biodiversity and other ecosystem services.

CHALLENGES FACING CANADA'S WEST

• Energy development accelerate negative human influence on the landscape (m)
• Environmental impact assessments are not considering cumulative effects (m)​​

• Tools to consider cumulative effects are missing (r)
  
• Effects of energy technologies on ES impacts (r)

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES​

1. What are the cumulative effects of small-scale energy development projects on multiple ES?
   
2. How can assessment of multiple ES be used to address cumulative impacts of energy development to reduce trade-offs with other ES?

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

1. Quantitative tools considering cumulative environmental effects arising from multiple energy technologies
   
2. Web-based interactive decision-support tool to evaluate different decision scenarios

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​FOR RESEARCH QUESTIONS, PLEASE CONTACT:​

Wendy Palen, Simon Fraser University
wendy_palen@sfu.ca

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LANDSCAPE 5 TEAM LEAD

Meet the full team