The Assiniboine Delta Region of Manitoba Master of Arts
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AN EVALUATION OF SITE SELECTION METHODS IN THE ASSINIBOINE DELTA REGION OF MANITOBA BY JOCELYNE LEGER A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Geography University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba O Jocelyne Leger, August 2003 TIIE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA FACULTY OF' GRADUATE STUDIES ***trìk COPYRIGHT PERMISSION PAGE AN EVALUATION OF SITE SELECTION METHODS IN THE ASSINIBOINE DELTA REGION OF MANITOBA BY JOCELYNE LEGER A ThesisÆracticum submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfÏllment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts JOCELYNE LEGER @ 2OO3 Permission has been granted to the Library of The University of Manitoba to lend or sell copies of this thesis/practicum, to the National Library of Canada to microfilm this thesis and to lend or sell copies of the film, and to University Microfilm Inc. to publish an abstract of this thesis/practicum. The author reserves other publication rights, and neither this thesis/practicum nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's written permission. Abstract Resources that are devoted to the conservation of biodiversity are limited. Conservation planners are often faced with the challenge of preserving the maximum amount of biodiversity within a give minimum amount of land. Based on these circumstances, the extent to which protected areas are capable of representing elements of biodiversity will largely depend on the manner in which protected areas are selected and where they are located. This thesis focuses on the application of systematic selection methods in order to identify potential networks of protected aleas that comprehensively represent enduring landscape features. Two conservation scenarios are explored: one takes into consideration the current level of conservation within the Assiniboine Delta region of Manitoba, and the other treats the study area as if no protected areas have been previously established within the region. A greedy heuristic algorithm and a simulated annealing algorithm were utilized to select candidate areas for conservation that would fulfill specific conservation goals. The two algorithms were free to select sites from crown lands or a combination of crown lands and privately owned natural lands. Variations in the magnitude of spatial clustering and conservation targets were applied to the two algorithms as they selected candidate areas for the two conservation scenarios. The simulated annealing algorithm outperformed the greedy heuristic algorithm with regards to generating a selection set that was spatially compact, and was much closer at meeting conservation goals in the most efficient manner. The results generated from this analysis contained some irnportant implications for conservation planning in the Assiniboine Delta region. Most importantly, efficient ecosystem representation could not be achieved for this region. The reasons for this were that, first, in order to achieve full ecosystem representation, a much larger land base would be required than was available. Second, the presence of existing protected areas reduced the efficiency with which a network of protected areas could be established. The reason for this was that the manner in which the protected areas have been previously established resulted in the over representation of conservation features. Third, the manner in which the planning units were spatially distributed across the landscape did not adequateiy sample all of the enduring landscape features. If full ecosystem representation based on enduring landscape features is going to be accomplished, not only would conservation planners have to look outside crown lands to include privately owned lands, but they would aiso have to examine the options of restoration and rehabilitation. Table of Contents Abstract. .........i List of Tables .........vi List of Figures... .......ix Chapter One: Introduction ...............1 l.l Background. ........1 1.2 Study Area. ........3 1.3 Statement of the Problem ........3 1.4 Objectives... ........4 I.5 Organization of Thesis. .........5 Chapter Two: Review of the Literature ...............6 2.l Introduction. .. .. .....6 2.2 Conservation in Practice .........7 2.2.1 National Efforts: Past and Present. .. .. ....1 2.2.2Provincial Efforts: Past and Present in Manitoba... ..... ....13 Z.3ProtectedAreas ............20 Z.3.lThe Role of Protected Areas. .......20 2.3.2 Systems of Protected Areas. ........24 2.3.3The Conservation of Biological Diversity. ........32 2.4 Selection of Protected Areas .........38 2.4.1Conservation Goals and Criteria ...........38 Z. .2Selection Methods..... .......45 2.4.3 Protected Area Design. .....46 2.5 Summary ....54 Chapter Three: Conservation Area Selection ......56 3.l lntroduction. ........56 3.2 Combinatorial Scoling. .....57 3.3 GAP Analysis. ......61 3.4 Enduring Feature Analysis Approach. ...........65 3.5 Systematic Selection Methods...... .............68 3.6 Geographic Information Systems ..... ..........13 3.7 Cbapter Summary ..........14 Chapter Four: Methods.. ........,........76 4.l Introduction. .........16 4.2 Study Area. ..........19 4.3BaseDataPreparation. ...........84 4.4Database Requirements for the Analysis...... ..........95 4.5 Conservation Objectives and Targets. .. .. ..99 4.6 Analysis..... .........106 4.1Bvaluation... .........111 Chapter Five: Results.......... ..........113 5.1 Objective One. .....113 5.1.1 Objective One Summary. ...135 5.2 Objective Two ...135 5.2.l GreedyHeuristics..... .......136 5.2.2 Simulated Annealing . .......145 5.2.3 Objective Two Summary. ...153 5.3 Objective Three .. ........153 5.3.1 Spatial and Descriptive Statistics. .........I54 5.3.2 Representation ........162 5.3.3 Efficiency.. .....184 5.3.4 Objective Three Summary. ........188 5.4 Objective Four. ...........I93 5.4.1Objective Four Summary. .. .. ....199 Chapter Six: Discussion and Conclusion ..........209 6.l Introduction. .....209 6.2 Objectle One - Discussion and Conclusion ......209 6.3 Objective Two - Discussion and Conclusion ......2IT 6.4 Objective Three - Discussion and Conclusion ....215 6.4.1 Summary Statistics ..... .. ...2I5 6.4.2 Representation ..........2I7 6.4.3Bfficiency . .............219 6.5 Objective Four - Discussion and Conclusion .......22I 6.6 Conclusion .. ........223 6.7 Future Work. ......221 Literature Cited....... ....,.230 Appendices Appendix 1 Base Layer Data Sets. ....244 Appendix 2 Summary Information for Individual Enduring Landscape Features. ... ......250 List of Tables Table 2.1 Species base conservation involvement over the past 100 years, complied from literatule sources .......14 Table 2.2 ConservationachievementswithinManitoba i990-2000. .......I9 Table 2.3 The World Conservation Union protected areas classification system. ..........26 Table 2.4 Land management categories fol conservation in Manitoba. .....30 TabIe2.5 Manitoba protected area designations. ......33 Table2.6 Criteria used to assess the level of representation for enduring landscape Feature. Table 2.1 Some important factors and considerations for determining the optimal scale of a reserve network ....49 Table 3.1 A review of conservation criteria used in combinatorjal scoring approaches .......58 TabIe 4.1 Enduring landscape feature description . .. ....90 Table 4.2 Derived GIS data layers. .........91 Table 4.3 Database requirements for selection analysis. .. .. ......97 Table 4.4 Original conservation targets. ...... 110 Table 5.1 Spatial distribution of enduring landscape features in the Assiniboine delta region. ......I14 Table 5.2 Summarized gap analysis results for the I5Vo,25Vo and proportional conservation target class. ....120 Table 5.3 Enduring landscape features that are currently represented in the existing network of protected areas. .... ....I20 Table 5.4 Criteria used to assess the level of representation for enduring landscape features. .......I22 Table 5.5 Representation that was achieved for the I5Vo, 25Vo and the proportional conservation talget class. ....I23 Table 5.6 Gap analysis results for the I5Vo coîservation target class. ..........126 vl Table 5.7 Gap analysis results for the 25Vo conservation target class.. .........127 Table 5.8 Gap analysis results for the pr'oportional conservation target class. .. .. .. ..I32 Table 5.9 Conservation targets for existing protected areas conservation scenario and no existing protected areas conservation scenario. ........I34 Table 5.10 Greedy heuristic algorithm - no existing protected areas in which all lands are included in the selection process. ...I31 Table 5.11 Greedy heuristic algorithm - no existing protected areas in which crown lands are included in the selection process. .. .139 Table 5.I2 Greedy heuristic algorithm - no existing protected areas in which all lands are included in the selection process. .....14I Table 5.13 Greedy heuristic algorithm - no existing protected areas in which crown lands are included in the selection process. .....143 Table 5.14 Simulated annealing algorithm -no existing protected areas in which all lands ale included in the selection process. ...I45 Table 5.15 Simulated annealing algorithm -no existing protected areas in which crown lands are included in the selection process. ...I41 Table 5.16 Simulated annealing algorithm -no existing protected areas in which all iands are included in the selection process. ...I49 Table 5.17 Simulated annealing