Natural Regions:

TOTAL AREA:
9,719 km2

TOTAL Human Footprint:
7 km2

Region Overview

The Canadian Shield Natural Region occupies an area of 9,719 km2 or 1.5% of the province in the northeastern corner of Alberta. This relatively flat landscape is predominately covered by exposed bedrock and glacial deposits interspersed with numerous shallow lakes and wetlands. What vegetation there is occurs in “pockets” such as rock crevices or other sheltered locations where enough soil has accumulated for plants to take root. Jack Pine uplands and Black Spruce bogs make up most of the vegetation. Common plants in the understory include Bearberry, Common Blueberry, Bog Cranberry, Labrador Tea, feathermosses, and a variety of drought-tolerant ferns. Lichen communities form patchy carpets on rock faces and slopes, and on the forest floor. The variety of habitats from lakes and wetlands to upland and lowland forests, rocky cliffs and islands, provides habitat for diverse wildlife species. Human footprint status and trends are presented for the Canadian Shield Natural Region

Status

As of 2023, human footprint occupied in the Canadian Shield Natural Region.

Only two types of human footprint occur in this Natural Region, including transportation (0.04%) and urban/industrial (0.03%).

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 Canadian Shield Natural Region, circa 2023.

Legend
Figure: Map of Human Footprint. Status of human footprint by sector in the Canadian Shield Natural 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 Canadian Shield Natural Region
  • Urban/industrial footprint increased by 0.03 percentage points, from 0.00% to 0.03%, and transportation footprint increased by 0.02 percentage points, from 0.02% to 0.04%.
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 Canadian Shield Natural 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 Canadian Shield Natural Region.
  • The two predominant linear feature types in the region were other linear features (0.03 km/km2) and roads (0.01 km/km2).
  • Legacy seismic lines had a density of < 0.001 km/km2.

Figure: Status of Linear Human Footprint. Density (km/km2) of linear features in the Canadian Shield Natural 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 Canadian Shield Natural 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.