OBrien D FEMC2007

Modelling Cumulative Impacts for Development of Sustainable Resource Management Plans

Dan O’Brien, Cortex Consultants Inc., Suite 2a - 1218 Langley Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1W2, Canada, dobrien@cortex.ca

In British Columbia, Canada, Sustainable Resource Management Plans (SRMP) enable the participation of all stakeholders (e.g., First Nations, Community, Government, Industry) to identify economic opportunities and values, resolve conflicts, and enable sustainable resource development, while maintaining productive and healthy ecosystems. When developing management guidelines it is important to consider potential effects of cumulative impacts that result from interactions of many incremental activities; each of which may have an insignificant effect when viewed alone, but which become cumulatively significant in the aggregate. We developed a spatio-temporal modelling framework capable of projecting future anthropogenic disturbances associated with resource development (forestry, natural gas exploration and development) and producing measurable indicators for assessing cumulative impacts on environmental and socio-economic values. We describe a case study where we applied this framework, and through scenario analysis, used the model to inform development of a SRMP for the Peace-Moberly Tract located in north-eastern BC.