Biodiversity Risk Assessment in the Oil Sands Region

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# Biodiversity Risk Asessment in the Oil Sands Region

### *Actionable science for making decisions*

## Andy Crosby | Scott Nielsen | Erin Bayne 
### December 15, 2022

## <a href="https://alberta-conservation.github.io/risk-assessment-overview-presentation/">Presentation Link</a>

##### Background image credit: Michael Benz
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# **The Roadmap:**

## Describing our overall approach

## Risk Assessment vs. 'Prediction'

## From science to decisions

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# **Climate Vulnerability and Adaptation**

## The  world has moved on...

# .center[Species are **Vulnerable** to change]

## What can we do?

# .center[We can **Adapt** to this change]

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# **Some terms:**

## **Vulnerability:** *Exposure*, *Sensitivity*, and *Adaptive Capacity* of species or systems to environmental change
 
## **Adaptation:** intentional adjustments to natural systems to address bioidiversity risks posed by vulnerability

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# **Ecosystem Transformation** 
(Thompson et al. 2022; Fisheries)
<img src="transformation.png" width="75%" align="right" />

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# **Changing Response Pathways in the Boreal **

.pull-left[
### 1. **Resilience:** historic  successional pathway
### 2. **Restructuring:** same composition, new structure 
### 3. **Reassembly:** same structure, new composition
### 4. **Replacement:** new composition and structure
### 5. **Regime shift:** no longer a forest
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![](response-pathways.jpg)
#### (Seidle and Turner 2022; PNAS)
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# Effects of Forest Fragmentation 
.pull-left[
<img src="frag.png" width="100%" align="middle" />
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.pull-right[
<img src="apparent-competition.png" width="75%" align="right">
#### (Serrouya et a,. 2020; Ecological Modeling)
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# The overall goals of the Risk Assessment framework

## 1. Assess boidiversity risks in terms of vulnerability to landscape and climate change

## 2. Inform the development of adaptation strategies 
 
# .center[The key challenge is uncertainty ]

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# **The Problem of Predicting the Future** 
 
##.center[We know that the future is uncertain.]

##.center[Future ecosystem states are difficult (i.e. *Impossible*) to predict]

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# **The limits of deterministic modelling**

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# **The limits of deterministic modelling**

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# **Forecasting and the Risk Assessment Framework**

## What do these things mean?

## .center[Forecasting estimates future conditions based on knowledge of ecological processes]

##.center[Risk assessment calculates the probabilities of various outcomes based on the forecasting model]

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# Implementing Risk Assessment

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# Failure to consider uncertainty in wildfire and harvest

![](fire-harvest-stochastic.png)
## Greater area burned | Shortfalls in timber harvest

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# Probabilities of maximum harvest shortfall over 100 years

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<img src="harvest-shortfall.png">
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## Density distribution of maximum harvest shortfall 
- ### Mean maximum shortfall of 23% with no climate change 
- ### Mean maximum shortfall of 61% with climate change 
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# From Forestry to Oil Sands

## Wildfire and forest harvesting as baselines in landscape simulation models

- ## Models already published or in development

## Seismic line recovery models from BERA

## New grad projects provide fragmentation effects

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# Risk Assessment and Structured Decision Making (SDM)

## SDM is a formal process for making decisions under uncertainty

## Beginning to see greater use in wildlife managemnt

## Requires active participation of managers and stakehoders throughout the process

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# Looking Ahead

## Develop a prototype over the next 6 months

## Publish methods first, then papers on both ecology and management implications

## Develop tools for dessemination

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# Final thoughts

## Decisions need to be made under uncertaitny

## We need to anknowledge and incorporate that uncertianty

## Risk assessemnt is a powerful tool for accomplishing this goal

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