Assessing the Association of Environmental Changes with Natural and Anthropogenic Stressors in the Oil Sand Area of Northern Alberta, Canada

Abstract

This study analysed the association of natural and anthropogenic stressors with environmental changes detected between 2000 and 2020 in the Oil Sands Area (OSA) of northern Alberta, Canada. Building on earlier change detection analyses and on remote sensing imagery (classification and spectral indices), we developed Random Forest and Generalized Boosted models to assess the role of potential change drivers. Detected environmental changes occurred over a relatively small portion of the region and displayed clustered patterns that varied over space and time, exhibiting both positive sign (i.e., increases) and negative sign (i.e., decreases) across the region and throughout the time period. Anthropogenic stressors considered in the analysis included indicators of industrial activities, oil and gas extraction, and urban land use, while wildfire, forest damage, and precipitation differences were considered natural stressors. Model results showed that environmental changes in the region were associated with varying combinations of natural and anthropogenic stressors, with a general prevalence of anthropogenic stressors during the 2000-2010 interval. Within the project scope, analyses were conducted at relatively coarse analytical scales, both spatially and temporally. Despite limitations in scale, data availability, and modelling approach, this analysis constitutes a valuable tool to understand environmental change in this area, and our results provide valuable information for monitoring and managing environmental changes in the OSA. Furthermore, those analyses would be easy to replicate for other regions where environmental changes occurred due to different stressors.