Final Report for:
Industrial Development and Human Activity Database for the Inuvialuit Settlement Region
Submitted to:
Cumulative Impact Monitoring Program
C/O Krista Chin
Environmental Management Scientist
Indian and Northern Affairs
Yellowknife
Presented by:
PO Box 2340
Inuvik, NT, X0E 0T0
Tel: (867) 777-5997
Fax: (867) 777-5992
March 31 2010
10-1328-0006
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ANDNWT-CIMP
HUMAN ACTIVITY DATABASEMarch 31 2010
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1Background
2Rationale
3Data Acquisition
4Creating the Database
5Assumptions
6Time span of the Data
7Limitations of the Data
8Maps and metadata
8.1Appendices
8.2Shapefiles
9Closure
IMG-Golder Corporation, Inuvik, NT109-1328-0012
Inuvialuit Settlement RegionNWT-CIMP
Draft HUMAN DEVELOPMENT DATABASEMarch 31 2010
1Background
The development of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region Industrial Development and Human Activity Database (the Project) was initiated to create a tool for initiating standard approaches to cumulative effects analysis and land use planning in the NWT. The product is a GIS ready database that provides an overview over human development activity data for the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR) of the Northwest Territories (NWT).
Discussions with various agencies and our previous experience with similar projects led to the approach of using land use permit and water licence records as a starting point for this database. Other data from various government and regulatory agencies that relate to human development activities were included. This report describes the data used in the database, how it was acquired, and provides an overview of the database contents.
2Rationale
Since the discovery of diamonds and renewed interest in the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, the Northwest Territories (NWT) has experienced a flurry of exploration, development, and other activities (hereafter referred to as development) in otherwise undeveloped areas. Effects from the individual developments (i.e., incremental effects) to the environment are not usually considered significant (e.g., see Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board [MVEIRB] 2003). However, the overlapping effects of multiple developments over space and time (the cumulative effects) are poorly understood, and there are few tools available to quantify these effects.
Concern has been raised regarding the cumulative effects of these developments upon wildlife; caribou, grizzly bear, and wolverine in particular (e.g., see McLouglinet al. 2003; Bathurst Caribou Management Planning Committee [BCMPC]2004; Johnson et al. 2005; Mulderset al. 2007; and Government of the Northwest Territories [GNWT] Department of Environment and Natural Resources [ENR] and Environment Canada [EC] 2008). To assess cumulative effects, a summary of the existing and past development is a useful tool. For example, the Action Plan for Woodland Caribou Conservation in the NWT (ENR 2008) calls for a current database of human disturbance.
To be of greatest value, this information must be available within large geographic boundaries, such as the Mackenzie River watershed or a caribou range. Further, the information must be readily available, and in a format suitable for spatial analysis (i.e., in Geographic Information System [GIS] software). Such a database can be used to enable an estimate of cumulative wildlife habitat loss, the extent of habitat fragmentation, or the number of developments causing cumulative effects in an area. This database is a useful tool for standardizing approaches to cumulative effects analysis, and for land use planning.
A comprehensive and publicly available database describing development activity within the ISR or NWT does not exist. Thus, IMG-Golder Corporation (IMG-Golder) created such a database of the ISR in the NWT. This database is similar and complementary to that already created for the North and South Slave regions of the NWT.
3Data Acquisition
Government and regulatory agencies and organizations, and, in some instances private companies and publicly available reports, were contacted or reviewed to identify available information within the ISR. A series of discussions with a variety of stakeholders indicated that the primary source of information on development within the ISR are the land use permit records kept by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), the Inuvialuit Land Administration (ILA), the NWT Water Board (NWTWB), the Environmental Impact Screening Committee (EISC) and the national Energy Board (NEB). Table 1 provides an overview of the most important agencies and organizations that were contacted, what data were retrieved and the contribution of these data to this report. The table does not contain data sources where the report, webpage or personal communication with a private developer contributed little or nothing to the dataset.
Organization / Agency / Contact / Type of Contact / Data SetNWTWB (Inuvik) / Web page
Sarah Mackenzie (Regulations officer) / Downloaded documents from webpage
Face to face meeting / Water licence applications (coordinates without datum)
ILA (Tuktoyaktuk) / Emily Borsi / Telephone and email / Access to Land Use Permit applications was not granted
NEB (Calgary) / Lori Ann Sharp (Group Leader, Data Management) / Telephone and email / Seismic lines (shapefile)
Well sites (spreadsheet, shapefiles)
INAC (Yellowknife) / Laura Moldowan
(Data Manager
Land Administration) / Telephone and email / Individual coordinates of development via INAC SID Online Viewer
Private companies (ISR) / Web pages, telephone, email / Downloaded documents and / or retrieved coordinates / Individual coordinates of development, seismic lines, roads (shapefiles)
Northwest Territories Geoscience Office / Web Page / Downloaded datasets / Google Earth (kmz; converted to shapefiles)
Natural Resources Canada (Canvec 2009) / Web Page / Downloaded datasets / Vector Digital Datasets for all of Canada, representing topographic information
4Creating the Database
4.1Data Compilation and Editing
Usually, the data were collected by the various agencies for administrative purposes, and did not provide an accurate picture of actual development. For example, a single development may have several land use permits, for features such as the camp, the winter access road, and the airstrip. In several instances, the same data were provided by different organizations in different data sets. The data therefore needed to be reviewed and consolidated in order to be useful for cumulative effects assessment.
During the process of consolidating information from various agencies into a single database, the following tasks were undertaken:
- determine what information should be included, to make the database useful for the widest audience;
- standardize land use information to create one entry for each development (e.g., a development with a camp, airstrip and fuel storage may have three separate land use permits; this would be consolidated into a single feature). The single feature will retain the component feature attributes and add the ability to recognize that all components are active simultaneously;
- eliminate known and obvious errors (e.g., wrong coordinates, spelling);
- identify and eliminate duplicates;
- indicate if the development included an accommodations camp;
- add temporal information if known and/or readily accessible (land use permits are typically granted for five years, but many mineral exploration camps operate for a shorter period); and
- develop metadata.
4.2Mapping Workflow
Geographic datasets were assembled through a variety of methods. Tabular spreadsheets complete with coordinates and attribute information had to be reconciled and brought into a spatial geographical information systems (GIS) format. GIS datasets had to be downloaded from various government agency websites, including the Natural Resources Canada Canvec topographic vector datasets.
Landscape disturbances were represented in point, line, or polygon format, depending on their scale. For example, it was decided that all point features such as buildings that fell within larger “community” boundaries would be represented solely under that community’s polygon, and not as individual entities. Community outlines were digitized using satellite imagery.
Once all data were compiled into a common format, common fields were populated throughout the dataset to describe the data source, the type of disturbance, temporal information etc. Visual quality control was performed using Google Earth and duplicates were investigated and reconciled when possible.
4.3Time Span of the Data
As this Project was confined to the use of existing digital data, older data was not available in some cases. Further, the date that the digital records initiated was not always clear. Both INAC and NEB had data included in their files that reached back to the year 2000; some publically available reports provided coordinates of development reaching back to the 1980’s. Some wellsite data provided by INAC did not have specified dates. It is likely that some of the sites date back to the 1970’s. Land use permits and water licence data acquired from INAC dated back to 1997. All data is current to 2009, with the exception of the artificial islands, for which data was available from 1981 to 1989, and have not been used for gas exploration since 1989.
5Assumptions
The definition of development used in this approach was determined by the nature of the development, its potential impacts and its footprint. It is recognized that this approach uses the subjective assessment of the authors. The criteria used to determine development for the purpose of this report were as follows:
- development projects are located outside of community boundaries;
- development within communities was assumed to be in the community polygons;
- development projects that were large in scale during their operations (e.g., wellsites);
- development projects that may continue to cause impacts after their operations (e.g., seismic lines, access roads); and
- Projects that created a permanent footprint (e.g. camps, all-weather roads).
6Limitations of the Data
Due to the limitations of budget and available information, the data included aremostly limited to those that have already been digitized. This report presents a GIS database (shapefile format) that represents past and current developments within the ISR. The following tasks were undertaken:
- while verifying coordinate information contained in the land use permit applications, it was noticed that in some applications there are no coordinates, map, or spatial references of any type;
- the applications that had spatial information did not always specify the datum of coordinates (e.g., the NWTWB does not require a datum for the coordinates provided on water license applications);
- centre coordinates were missing in many applications, the minimum/maximum latitude/longitude boxes had different coordinate formats;
- some applications contained no map showing where this parcel of land for the activity was located. If there was an error in the coordinates there was no way of verifying it by comparing it to a map;
- many applications did not contain site plans;
- minimal to no metadata (i.e. information about the data that is embedded into the file) was included with files received from the various organizations which made it difficult to determine facts about the data (e.g. date of last update, accuracies, where information came from);
- much of the spatial data obtained did not have fields in the attribute table containing the correct coordinates;
- there is not a single organization that gathers all development data; and
- Some data points represented entire mapsheets where development/exploration might have taken place. In this case, points were removed.
Most of the data in this report were retrieved from land use and water licence applications. In many instances, it can be assumed that the development took place and the presented data are reflective of the actual development. Inin several instances the authors were aware of developmentsdid not proceed, or were still in the process of review. In these cases, the data were not included. It is understood that this database is an evolving project that will be updated in regular intervals as more information becomes available and new development takes place. As such, the maps included in this report are intended to be a first step in the establishment of a complete picture of development in the ISR.
7Maps and metadata
This Project consists of several deliverables, accompanying the report.
7.1Maps / Figures
Figure 1.Linear developments within theInuvialuit Settlement Region
Figure 2.Point developments within theInuvialuit Settlement Region
Figure 3. Industrial Developments on Richardson Island
7.2Shapefiles
There are three GIS shapefilesthat accompany the report as separate electronic files.All mapping information is contained in these files. This deliverable enables INAC to make revisions to the maps at any time. Theshapefiles are:
- ISR_human_developments_point
- ISR_human_developments_line
- ISR_human_developments_polygon
8Closure
We hope that this Report meets with your approval. If you have any questions concerning this document, or if we can modify it in any way to better suit your needs, please contact us. We look forward to the results of your review and will work to incorporate your comments into the next version of this report.
Yours sincerely,
IMG-Golder Corporation
Julia Krizan, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Senior Biologist
Office Manager and Director,
IMG-Golder Corporation
Inuvik, NT
IMG-Golder Corporation, Inuvik, NT110-1328-0006