Environmental Sensitivity Project (2015)

About this dataset

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.