Methods
In this chapter we summarize the methods used to define indicators, analyze data, and summarize information included in this report, such as human footprint, biodiversity intactness, and sector effects.
120 ABMI sites
in Norbord's operating areas, including 95 sites in the Northern Operating Area and 25 in the Southern Operating Area. As of 2019, 34 of 95 sites had been sampled in the north, and 19 of 25 sites had been sampled in the south.
The ABMI monitors the state of Alberta’s land cover and biodiversity, including in Norbord's operating areas. Methods are summarized for:
- Land cover metrics including: human footprint, linear footprint, and interior native habitat.
- Biodiversity metrics including: biodiversity intactness index, sector effects, and landbase change attribution.


Introduction
From the boreal forest in the north to the grasslands in the south, the ABMI monitors the state of Alberta’s biodiversity. Through our field and laboratory efforts, the ABMI has detected over 3,000 species in Alberta.
The ABMI employs a systematic grid of 1,656 site locations, spaced 20 km apart, to collect biodiversity information, including species and habitat data, at both terrestrial and wetland sites[1] Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute. 2014. Terrestrial field data collection protocols (abridged version) 2018-05-07. Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, Alberta, Canada. Report available at: abmi.ca. Reference
At each location, ABMI technicians record the species that are present, and measure a variety of habitat characteristics. For species that cannot be identified in the field (e.g., mites and lichen), ABMI taxonomists sort, identify, and archive samples to complete the Institute’s species-level dataset.
Methods
Click on a tab to review a summary of methods and analysis for human footprint, linear features, interior native habitat, biodiversity intactness, and sector effects:



- Human Footprint
- Linear Features
- Interior Native Habitat
- Biodiversity Intactness
- Sector Effects
- Landbase Change Attribution
Measuring Human Footprint
The ABMI defines human footprint as the visible alteration or conversion of native ecosystems to temporary or permanent residential, recreational, agricultural, or industrial landscapes. The definition includes all areas under human use that have lost their natural cover for extended periods of time, such as cities, roads, agricultural fields, and surface mines. It also includes land that is periodically reset to earlier successional conditions by industrial activities such as forest harvest areas and seismic lines. Some human land uses, such as grazing, hunting, and trapping, or the effects of pollution, are not yet accounted for in our human footprint analyses.

Human Footprint Categories
Human footprint is divided into nine categories for analysis:
Agriculture Footprint
Areas of annual or perennial cultivation, including crops and tame pasture, as well as confined feeding operations and other high-density livestock areas.
Energy Footprint
Areas where vegetation or soil has been disturbed by the creation of mine sites, peat mines, pipelines, seismic lines, transmission lines, well sites, and wind-generation facilities. This footprint type is called “energy footprint” because most of this footprint type is associated with the energy industry.
Forestry Footprint
Areas in forested landscapes where timber resource extraction has occurred for industrial purposes, including clear-cut and partial-cut logging methods.
Effective Forestry Footprint
The area of forestry footprint pro-rated for how much it has recovered for biodiversity, based on harvest area age and stand type (deciduous or conifer). A newly harvested area is considered to be 0% recovered, while mature forest is 100% recovered.
Human-created Waterbodies
Human-created waterbodies used for a variety of purposes, such as to extract fill (borrow-pits, sumps), water livestock (dugouts), transport water (canals), meet municipal needs (water supply, sewage), and store water (reservoirs).
Transportation Footprint
Railways, roadways, and trails with hard surfaces such as cement, asphalt, or gravel, roads or trails without gravel or pavement, and the vegetation strips alongside transportation features.
Urban/Industrial Footprint
Combines urban, rural, and industrial footprint types including residences, buildings, and disturbed vegetation and substrate associated with urban and rural settlements, such as housing, shopping centres, industrial areas, golf courses, and recreation areas, as well as bare ground cleared for industrial and commercial development.
Total Human Footprint
Summary of six human footprint categories combined: agriculture, energy, forestry, human-created waterbodies, transportation, and urban/industrial.
Effective Human Footprint
Same definition as Total Human Footprint but replacing Forestry Footprint with Effective Forestry Footprint.
How Human Footprint is Analyzed
The ABMI monitors the status of Alberta’s human footprint using satellite imagery at two spatial scales:
3 x 7-km Samples
The ABMI uses human footprint data measured annually at a 1:5,000 scale to track changes in human footprint over time. Detailed annual samples of human footprint are measured in a 3 × 7-km rectangular area centered near each of the ABMI’s 1,656 sites, which when summed across all sites amounts to about 5% of the province’s land surface. ABMI human footprint trend data are available from 1950 to 2019. Trend data and the metadata associated with these data can be accessed here.
Provincial Scale
At the provincial scale, the ABMI merges 20 human footprint sub-layers (based on 117 feature types) into a single integrated layer by applying a specific order of precedence to create the ABMI Human Footprint Inventory (HFI), circa 2018. Some of these 20 sub-layers are created by the ABMI and Government of Alberta as part of the Alberta Human Footprint Monitoring Program. We use the HFI 2018 for two purposes in this report: to generate maps of human footprint in Norbord’s operating areas, and to standardize the 3 × 7-km trend estimates before reporting. This product is updated approximately every two years; these data and the metadata associated with this product are available here.
Human Footprint Recovery
As a successional footprint, forestry recovers with time after disturbance. To account for this recovery, we summarize “recovered forestry”—defined as Effective Forestry Footprint in this report—prorating the effects on biodiversity of older harvested areas using biotic recovery curves based on a literature review[2] Huggard, D. and L. Kremsater. 2015. Human footprint recovery for the Biodiversity Monitoring Framework - Quantitative Synthesis. Unpublished Report.Reference

How Human Footprint is Reported
To report on the status of human footprint, the ABMI presents the percentage of land directly altered by human activities, ranging from 0% (no visible human footprint) to 100% (completely modified by human footprint). In general, cities and cultivated fields have high human footprint, while protected and undeveloped areas have low human footprint. Human footprint is summarized for total human footprint and by the six reporting categories.
Trend in human footprint in Norbord’s operating areas was assessed using the 3 × 7-km detailed inventory of human footprint available from 1950 to 2019. Trend is presented for total human footprint, effective human footprint, and by the seven reporting categories.
For forestry footprint and total human footprint (both status and trend), we also report on the area of their respective footprints after reducing the area of older forestry footprint based on how recovered it is, referred to as Effective Forestry Footprint and Effective Human Footprint.
The maps used to visualize human footprint in this report are based on the GIS Inventory of Provincial Human Footprint, circa 2018.
Our Data Partners
We are thankful to the many organizations and institutions that contribute information to the ABMI, supporting analyses and results found in this report and elsewhere. These partnerships make the ABMI, and its data and information products, stronger.
For this report, we particularly acknowledge the contributions of the Boreal Avian Modelling Project, Environment and Climate Change Canada, members of the Applied Geospatial Research Group at the University of Calgary, the Caribou Monitoring Unit, the Bioacoustic Unit, and Alberta Environment and Parks.
More information on our data partners is given on the Collaborators and Contributors page.
References
A more detailed overview of the methods used to produce the ABMI's species-habitat models and Intactness Index is available on the main ABMI website.
Additionally, the following resources were referenced in this report:
Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute. 2014. Terrestrial field data collection protocols (abridged version) 2018-05-07. Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, Alberta, Canada. Report available at: abmi.ca.
Huggard, D. and L. Kremsater. 2015. Human footprint recovery for the Biodiversity Monitoring Framework - Quantitative Synthesis. Unpublished Report.
Huggard, D. and L. Kremsater. 2015. Recommendations for forest interior and old-forest indicators for the Biodiversity Management Framework. Unpublished Report.
Azeria, E.R., P. Sólymos, D.J. Huggard, M-C. Roy, and J. Schieck. 2019. Detailed methods and results for predicting species status and relationships. Technical Report available at: https://abmi10years.ca/10-year-review/resources/.
Sólymos, P. and J. Schieck. 2016. Effects of industrial sectors on species abundance in Alberta. ABMI Science Letters, Issue 5: October, 2016.