Land-use Planning Regions:

TOTAL AREA:
83,004 km2

TOTAL Human Footprint:
27,126 km2

Region Overview

The Upper Athabasca Region covers 83,004 km2 or 12.5% of the province in northwest central Alberta. Forest ecosystems cover most of the landbase, including the Boreal Forest (44%), Foothills (38%), and Rocky Mountain (17%) Natural Regions. Forestry is an important economic driver with several Forest Management Agreement (FMA) areas overlapping the regional boundary. In addition, recreation and tourism are key industries; Jasper National Park—a world-renowned tourist destination—coincides with this region. Human footprint status and trends are summarized for the Upper Athabasca Region.

Status

As of 2023, human footprint occupied in the Upper Athabasca Region.

Agriculture was the dominant human footprint, covering 13.9% of the land base, followed closely by forestry footprint at 13.2%. Energy footprint covered 2.1% of the region, and transportation covered 1.9%, and urban/industrial footprint covered 0.9% of the region. 

Human Footprint Type Area (km2) Area (%)
Due to rounding errors and/or small amounts of human footprint that cannot currently be assigned to a reporting category, the sum of the individual human footprint reporting categories may not equal the total human footprint value.

Figure: Status of Human Footprint. Summary of percentage cover of total human footprint broken down by human footprint category in the Upper Athabasca Region, circa 2023.

Legend
Figure: Map of Human Footprint. Status of human footprint by sector in the Upper Athabasca Region (circa 2023). Click on sectors in the Legend to turn different footprint types on and off. Zoom into map for a detailed view of the distribution of human footprint. This map can be explored in more detail in the ABMI Mapping Portal.

Trend

  • Between 2000 and 2023, the total area of human footprint in the Upper Athabasca Region
  • This increase in human footprint was driven by the expansion of forestry footprint, which doubled in size during this time from 6.1% to 13.2%. However, this increase in forestry footprint is lower when forest recovery is considered: forestry footprint increased by 4.3 percentage points (5.0% to 9.3%) when recovery of regenerating forest is included.
  • The remaining human footprint categories each had small increases of < 1.0 percentage point between 2000 and 2023.
Human Footprint Type 2000 (km2) 2023 (km2) Change (km2)
Human Footprint Type 2000 (%) 2023 (%) Change (%)

Figure: Trend in Human Footprint. Trend in the percentage area of total human footprint, and by human footprint category in the Upper Athabasca Region between 1950 and 2023. Click on the entries in the legend to turn human footprint categories on and off.

Status of Linear Human Footprint

  • Density of linear features was in the Upper Athabasca Region.
  • Legacy seismic lines, with a density of 1.5 km/km2, were the predominant line type, representing 48% of linear footprint in the region.
  • Density of roads (0.7 km/km2) and other linear features (0.6 km/km2) represented 22% and 21% of linear footprint, respectively, in the Upper Athabasca Region.
  • Transmission lines and railways had very low densities in the region.

Figure: Status of Linear Human Footprint. Density (km/km2) of linear features in the Upper Athabasca Region, circa 2023, overall and broken down by linear feature type. Hover over bar or legend to view density of specific linear feature type. Please note that linear density reporting excludes seismic line types that are not consistently represented provincially, including: Seismic Line of Sight, Low Impact Seismic, Seismic Conventional (Modern), Seismic Avoidance, and unconfirmed seismic lines.

Legend
Figure: Map of Linear Human Footprint. Status of linear features, by line type, in the Upper Athabasca Region, circa 2023. Click on line types in the Legend to turn on and off. Zoom into map for a detailed view of the distribution of linear features. This map can be explored in more detail in the ABMI Mapping Portal.