The Riparian Area Assessment of the Buffalo, Kneehills, Little Red Deer and Threehills, Michichi, Raven, and Rosebud Sub Watersheds project focused on assessing riparian habitat along lake, creek, stream and river shorelines. This dataset was created for the Red Deer River Watershed Alliance as a part of a large scale riparian area assessment in Alberta. The overall goal of this project was to quantify and characterize the intactness of riparian management areas in the Red Deer River watersheds. Riparian habitat was assessed along approximately 5,285 km of shoreline within the Buffalo, Kneehills, Little Red Deer, and Threehills subwatersheds. Riparian habitat was also assessed along approximately 4,031 km of shoreline as part of Michichi, Raven and Rosebud Sub Watersheds. These seven subwatersheds cover an area of ~22,904 km2 and are located in central Alberta, roughly between Ponoka and Airdrie.

This dataset is produced for the Government of Alberta and is available to the general public. Please consult the Distribution Information of this metadata for the appropriate contact to acquire this dataset. Riparian areas consist of the lands adjacent to streams, rivers, wetlands and lakes that are strongly influenced by the presence of water. They are often distinct from the surrounding landscape as the vegetation growth is very lush. These areas form a transition between dry land and open water and are characterized by the presence of hydrophilic vegetation and specific soil types. Riparian areas are usually very productive in terms of biomass and form critical wildlife habitat. Additionally, these areas often have standing water and are subjected to periodic flooding when high water levels fill the stream channel to the top of the bank. The term 'riparian' is derived from the Latin word for river bank. Riparian areas provide valuable food, shelter and travel corridors as well as an adjacent water source for wildlife and livestock. These zones are often densely vegetated and serve as stabilization against the erosive forces associated with lotic systems. Riparian areas provide filtration for surface runoff from the surrounding land and protect the water quality of flowing streams. They trap sediment and reduce the velocity of stream flow, thus reducing erosion in downstream areas. These areas provide detritus to their associated aquatic systems as well as a moderating effect on surface temperatures. The function of riparian areas in the landscape is regarded to be sufficiently critical that they are given special consideration in terms of the impact assessment resulting from human activities such as recreation, logging, oil and gas exploration, road construction and range management. Informatics Branch of Alberta Environment and Parks, Government of Alberta has been assigned the task of developing a provincial map of riparian areas. This project represents the initial effort to map riparian areas for the province. The riparian areas map is intended as input into ALCES (A Landscape Cumulative Effects Simulator), which is software developed by Forem Technologies. ALCES is being used to project the cumulative effects of various types of human activity on the landscape. This is accomplished by generating aspatial snapshots of regions within the provincial landscape and assuming that the current level of human impact continues. The methodology involved creating variable buffers by Natural Region based on Strahler Order coding for streams that had been merged with the associated perennial lakes. Higher Strahler Order codes were associated with wider buffers and drier Natural Regions were associated with narrower buffers. The result was a geodatabase of polygons that were intended to represent potential lotic riparian areas but the accuracy was poor. Landsat information and the Base Features Digital Elevation Model were incorporated to a minimal degree as refinements to the coverage but did not result in any improvement in the spatial accuracy of the data. This dataset is not recommended for use in riparian analysis. The Lotic Riparian - Digital Elevation Model Derived dataset, which was released in October 2011, is a better representation of the location and extent of riparian areas.

The Riparian Area Assessment of the North Saskatchewan and Battle River Watersheds project focused on assessing riparian habitat along lake, creek, stream and river shorelines. The majority of the shorelines of interest were located within the NSR or Battle River watersheds. however, an additional shoreline was also assessed within municipalities that partially intersect, but are not completely contained within, either the NSR or Battle River watersheds. In addition to assessing new shorelines, an important component of this project was compiling data for shorelines that had been previously assessed in central Alberta using the same assessment methodology. these data were combined together to create a single, seamless riparian assessment dataset that contains ~35,400 km of lake, river, stream, and creek shoreline. This dataset was created for the North Saskatchewan and Battle River Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils, as a part of a large scale Riparian Area Assessment in Alberta.

The Indian Reserve dataset is comprised of all the polygons that represent Indian Reserves in Alberta and also includes their associated Bands/Nations and Tribal Council associations as described in the Canada First Nations Profile (https://fnp-ppn.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/fnp/Main/Search/SearchRV.aspx?lang=eng). Indian Reserve lands are lands set aside for the exclusive use and benefits of the Bands/Nations to which it is assigned. The federal government has primary jurisdiction over these lands and the people living on them. A Band or First Nation is an administrative entity/governing body created by the Indian Act. A Band/Nation includes members of a First Nation or group for whom lands have been set apart, and for whom money is held by the Crown. Each First Nation has its own distinct culture, language, history, and governance structure. They are the primary decision-makers for their respective Indian Reserves and their members. The Government of Alberta recognizes certain nations as individuals that the Federal Government does not recognize. These Nation names will be formatted as 'Federally recognized community [Alberta Recognized Nation]'.A Tribal Council is a grouping of bands/Nations with common interests who voluntarily join together to provide advisory and/or program services to member bands. A First Nation may choose to affiliate with a Tribal Council to achieve shared goals in areas such as economic development, social services, education, or land management.

The Riparian Area Assessment of the Upper, Mid and Lower Pembina River Watersheds project focused on assessing riparian habitat along lake, creek, stream and river shorelines. This dataset was created for the Athabasca Watershed Council as a part of a large scale riparian area assessment in Alberta. The overall goal of this project was to quantify and characterize the intactness of riparian management areas in the Pembina River watersheds, and to further assess pressure on riparian system function by evaluating land use and land cover within local catchments immediately adjacent to the waterbodies included in this study.

The Riparian Areas Assessment of the Swan River, Lesser Slave River and Tributaries, West Prairie, and Lesser Slave Lake focused on assessing riparian habitat along creek, stream and river shorelines. This dataset was created for the Lesser Slave Watershed Council as a part of a large scale riparian area assessment in Alberta. The overall goal of this project was to quantify and characterize the riparian habitat management in the Lesser Slave Lake watershed by assessing riparian areas along approximately 2536 km of shoreline. This study created a recent land cover layer within 50 m of selected shorelines and use this layer to assess the intactness of riparian areas along major waterbodies. It also provided guidance on how the results from the intactness assessments can be used to target conservation and restoration efforts within along the shorelines that were assessed as part of the study.

The Riparian Quality Index (IQBR) is used to assess the ecological condition of the shoreline environment. It is built from nine components that have been weighted according to their potential to perform ecological functions in terms of the protection of aquatic ecosystems.Data on shoreline quality come from benthos monitoring stations sampled between 2003 and 2023.**This third party metadata element was translated using an automated translation tool (Amazon Translate).**

This dataset is produced for the Government of Alberta and is available to the general public. Please consult the Distribution Information of this metadata for the appropriate contact to acquire this dataset. Riparian areas consist of the lands adjacent to streams, rivers, wetlands and lakes that are strongly influenced by the presence of water. They are often distinct from the surrounding landscape as the vegetation growth is very lush. These areas form a transition between dry land and open water and are characterized by the presence of hydrophilic vegetation and specific soil types. Riparian areas are usually very productive in terms of biomass and form critical wildlife habitat. These areas often have standing water and are subjected to periodic flooding when high water levels fill the stream channel to the top of the bank. The term 'riparian' is derived from the Latin word for river bank. Riparian areas provide valuable food, shelter and travel corridors as well as close proximity to a water source for wildlife and livestock. These zones are often densely vegetated and serve as stabilization against the erosive forces associated with lotic systems. Riparian areas provide filtration for surface runoff from the surrounding land and protect the water quality of flowing streams. They trap sediment and reduce the velocity of stream flow, thus reducing erosion in downstream areas. These areas provide detritus to their associated aquatic systems as well as a moderating effect on surface temperatures. This riparian mapping project is intended to provide a geodatabase feature class of potential riparian areas associated with lotic features (streams and rivers) using the hydrologically corrected provincial digital elevation model as a base. Potential riparian areas associated with lentic features (wetlands and lakes) are not being captured at this time but wide rivers and lakes with flow through must be taken into consideration in order to give a more accurate representation of riparian areas. Isolated lakes are not included and no allowance for cultivated lands has been made.

Spatial representation of a reserve of retention area associated with a silvicultural system. Reserves are forest patches or individual trees retained during harvesting, or other forestry operations to provide habitat, scenic, biodiversity, and other values. The reserve types included are Riparian, Wildlife Tree Patches, and Other. This is part of the Silviculture and Land status Tracking dataset, which includes all business processes required to receive and process records from forest licensees to record report on Silviculture and Land Status Management activities.

Six stream riparian classes ([STREAM_CLASS] = 1-6) based on presence of fish, occurrence in a community watershed and average channel width. [STREAM_CLASS] = 7 refers to unclassified streams. Stream classification is based on the 1995 Forest Practices Code Riparian Management Area Guidebook: http://www.llbc.leg.bc.ca/public/PubDocs/bcdocs/237312/Rip-toc.htm or https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/forestry/managing-our-forest-resources/silviculture/silvicultural-systems/silviculture-guidebooks/riparian-management-area-guidebook