Land-use Planning Regions:

TOTAL AREA:
85,781 km2

TOTAL Human Footprint:
48,046 km2

Region Overview

The North Saskatchewan Region, an area covering 85,781 km2 or 18% of Alberta, bisects the province from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Saskatchewan border in the east and encompasses a diversity of ecosystems and land uses. This region includes five of Alberta’s six Natural Regions: Rocky Mountain, Foothills, Boreal Forest, Parkland, and Grassland. Forestry is an important industry in the Foothills Natural Region. In the Parkland, Grassland, and Boreal Forest Natural Regions, there are a range of land uses—agriculture, industrial development, and urban expansion—as well as the transportation infrastructure to support these activities. Privately owned land makes up more than 60% of the region. Human footprint status and trends are summarized for the North Saskatchewan Region.

Status

As of 2023, human footprint occupied in the North Saskatchewan Region.

Agriculture was the dominant human footprint, covering 44.5% of the region. The following human footprint categories occupied similar areas: forestry (3.3%), transportation (3.1%), urban/industrial (2.6%), and energy (2.0%). Human-created water bodies occupied <1.0% 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 North Saskatchewan Region, circa 2023.

Legend
Figure: Map of Human Footprint. Status of human footprint by sector in the North Saskatchewan 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 North Saskatchewan Region
  • The footprints that expanded the most during this time period were: forestry (+2.1%), urban/industrial (+0.8%), and energy (+0.5%). 
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 North Saskatchewan 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 North Saskatchewan Region.
  • Roads, with a density of 1.1 km/km2, were the predominant line type, representing 51% of linear footprint in the region.
  • Legacy seismic lines and other linear features represented a combined 38% of total linear footprint in the region, each at 0.4 km/km2.
  • Transmission lines and railways had very low densities.

Figure: Status of Linear Human Footprint. Density (km/km2) of linear features in the North Saskatchewan 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 North Saskatchewan 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.