Historically, the City of Edmonton has managed ‘natural areas’ within the North Saskatchewan River Valley and the Tablelands separately, guided by inventories such as the Ribbon of Green and Geowest (1993). Over the past decade, City policy has shifted to manage natural areas with consideration of their role within an ecological network. Today, a goal of the City is to protect, preserve and enhance a functioning ecological network throughout the city limits. This network should include lands in both the river valley and the Tablelands. To further this goal, a model was developed in 2015 for determining environmental sensitivity scores across the entirety of the city. This model guided the collection of several digital data layers with coverage across the entire study area (including several ecological assets, threats to assets, and development and cultural constraints). Data layers were then used to develop spatial outputs that summarized the distribution of these assets, threats and constraints. These base layers have been compiled into this dataset to help inform planning, development and conservation throughout Edmonton. Environmental sensitivity analysis incorporated recent mapping of the ecological network of native and non-native vegetation, streams, wetlands and other waterbodies as much as possible, with practical limitations. The City’s urban Primary Land and Vegetation Inventory (uPLVI) and remote sensing data used for this assessment were completed in 2015 and 2013 respectively, which is relatively recent, but not current. Similarly, infrastructure data (roads, subdivision development and stormwater facilities) provided varied in month of acquisition from 2015. Some discrepancy between mapped and actual features may result, due to loss and changes from ongoing development activities.
This dataset has the following 33 columns:
Column Name | API Column Name | Data Type | Description | Sample Values |
---|---|---|---|---|
the_geom | the_geom | multipolygon | geospatial information | view top 100 |
Provincial Wildlife Record | afwmis1 | number | FWMIS Wildlife records | 0 1 view top 100 |
Sensitive Fish Habitat | afishstur1 | number | Provincial fish data (Code of Practice maps of sensitive aquatic habitats, supplemented with newer known locations of sensitive fish species (sturgeon) held by Alberta Environment and Parks - 2016). | 0 1 view top 100 |
Municipal Natural Area | aprolanna2 | number | Legally Protected Lands (other City of Edmonton, University of Alberta and Province of Alberta Natural Areas - 2015) | 0 2 view top 100 |
Environmental Reserve | aprolaner2 | number | Legally Protected Lands (designated as Environmental Reserve - 2015) | 0 2 view top 100 |
Provincial Park | aprolanpp3 | number | Legally Protected Lands (Alberta Provincial Parks - 2015) | 0 3 view top 100 |
Modelled Microclimate | amicrocli1 | number | Microclimate (modelled Microclimate identified as areas that contained a remotely sensed combination of steep slope and sunny/shaded aspect - 2012) | 0 1 view top 100 |
Stormwater Pond (Naturalized) | aswmfnat1 | number | Naturalized SWMF (Stormwater management facilities designed to mimic natural wetland processes - 2015) | 0 1 view top 100 |
Wildlife Occurrence (ACIMS) | anonsense1 | number | Non-Sensitive EOS (ACIMS Non-sensitive Element Occurrence data - 2016) | 0 1 view top 100 |
Aquatic Habitat | aaquhab1 | number | Aquatic River and Bank Habitat (source: North Saskatchewan River Valley & Ravine System Biophysical Study, EPEC 1981) | 0 1 view top 100 |
Streams | astream2 | number | Remotely sensed stream mapping (source: hydrological analysis of 2012 LiDAR mapped using the Strahler ordering technique. Only ephemeral to permanent streams were used in analysis) | 0 2 view top 100 |
Natural Vegetation | avegnat2 | number | Remotely sensed terrestrial natural vegetation (source: vegetation analysis of 2012 LiDAR and full‐spectrum remote sensing imagery intersected with Edmonton’s uPLVI to separate native from non-native vegetation) | 0 2 view top 100 |
NonNatural Vegetation | avegnonat1 | number | Remotely sensed terrestrial non-natural vegetation (source: vegetation analysis of 2012 LiDAR and full‐spectrum remote sensing imagery intersected with Edmonton’s uPLVI to separate native from non-native vegetation) | 1 0 view top 100 |
Desktop Derived Wetlands | awetland1 | number | Desktop Derived Wetlands excluding anthropogenic water bodies and stormwater ponds (source: remotely sensed using a combination of depression analysis (2012 LiDAR (1 m) data) and wetland vegetation classification using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index measurement of spectral reluctance values captured in 2013 four band orthoimagery. | 0 1 view top 100 |
Unique Landforms | auniqland1 | number | Unique landscape level landforms including the Devon Dunes, Beaver Hills Moraine, and North Saskatchewan River Valley and Ravine System | 0 1 view top 100 |
Unique Native Vegetation | auniqveg1 | number | Unique Native Vegetation (source: unique veg communities/soil moistures/texture as identified and analyzed from Edmonton’s uPLVI and vegetation sample plot data) | 0 1 view top 100 |
Arboreal Wildlife Corridor | achickcor1 | number | Chickadee Corridors | 0 1 view top 100 |
Terrestrial Wildlife Corridor | acoyotcor1 | number | Coyote Winter Corridors | 0 1 view top 100 |
Floodplain | cfloodpla2 | number | Floodplain - Areas at risk of periodic flooding, 1:100 year event (Alberta Environment and Parks flood risk mapping for the North Saskatchewan River Valley and parts of the Sturgeon River valley (2015). Note: floodplain mapping has not been completed for Edmonton’s ravines and along the shores of Big Lake) | 0 2 view top 100 |
Floodway | cfloodway1 | number | Floodway - Areas at risk of periodic flooding, 1:100 year event (Alberta Environment and Parks flood risk mapping for the North Saskatchewan River Valley and parts of the Sturgeon River valley (2015). Note: floodway mapping has not been completed for Edmonton’s ravines and along the shores of Big Lake) | 0 1 view top 100 |
Major Slope (>30°) | cslopemaj2 | number | Remotely sensed major slopes (Slopes >30°) | 0 2 view top 100 |
Moderate Slope (15-30°) | cslopemod1 | number | Remotely sensed major slopes (Slopes 15-30°) | 0 1 view top 100 |
Land Use Threat - Low | tlandusel1 | number | Land Use Threat - Low | 0 1 view top 100 |
Land Use Threat - Moderate | tlandusem2 | number | Land Use Threat - Moderate | 0 2 view top 100 |
Land Use Threat - Very Low | tlandusev0 | number | Land Use Threat - Very Low | 0 view top 100 |
Outfalls | toutfall1 | number | Outfall location (2015) | 0 1 view top 100 |
Stormwater Ponds (Traditional) | tswmf1 | number | Traditional SWMF (Stormwater management facilities surrounded by maintained turf containing limited wetland vegetation) | 0 1 view top 100 |
Asset and Constraint Score | assconec | number | Total of Asset and Constraint Scores | 1 2 3 4 5 view top 100 |
Threat Score | threatsc | number | Total Threat Score | 2 1 0 3 4 view top 100 |
Score | score | number | Final Score (Asset + Constraint Score - Threat Score = Final Environmental Sensitivity Score) | -1 0 1 2 3 view top 100 |
Value | value | text | Environmental Sensitivity Value (Low, Moderate, High, Very High, Extremely High Value) | Moderate Value Low Value High Value Very High Value Extremely High Value view top 100 |
Asset Score | assetsc | number | Total Asset Score | 1 2 3 4 5 view top 100 |
Area (ha) | area_ha | number | Area in hectares (ha) | 0.0056 0.0064 0.008 0.006 0.0052 view top 100 |