TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEM MAPPING: MAMQUAM LANDSCAPE UNIT Prepared For: Soo Licensee Group Ian Robertson, R.P.F., FIA Coordinator c/o International Forest Products Ltd. 311-1180 Ironwood St. Campbell River, BC V9W 5P7 Prepared By: Timberline Natural Resource Group Ltd. 401-958 West 8 th Ave Vancouver, BC V5Z 1E5 March 31, 2007 TEM REPORT: MAMQUAM LANDSCAPE UNIT Soo Licensee Group ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Terrestrial ecosystem mapping of the Mamquam Landscape Unit could not have been successfully completed without the efforts of many people. This project was funded through the Forest Investment Account (FIA) and was coordinated by the participating Soo TSA Licensee Group. Ian Robertson, R.P.F., of Forsite Forest Management Specialists acted as the FIA Coordinator on behalf of the participating Soo licensees. Ecological data collection was completed by the following Timberline staff: Scott Hawker (R.P.Bio., project manager) and Kara Aleksich (B.Sc., F.I.T.). Digital photo control was completed by Andrew Neale of Andrew Neale Digital Mapping (Victoria, B.C.). Data capture (monorestitution) was completed by Eros Pavan, R.P.F., Timberline. Nick Zukanovic and Jouni Tanskanen of Timberline provided their GIS expertise throughout the project. Helen Reid, R.P.Bio., of Madrone Environmental Services Ltd. (Duncan, B.C.), provided an independent quality assurance check of the final mapping. i TEM REPORT: MAMQUAM LANDSCAPE UNIT Soo Licensee Group EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Mamquam Landscape Unit (LU) is located directly east of Squamish, BC, in a coastal climatic zone. It encompasses approximately 49,946 hectares. Of the total area, 28,908 hectares are productive forest and the remaining 21,038 hectares are either non- forested or non-Crown lands (Gill 2004). In order to catalogue the resources of the Mamquam LU, the Defined Forest Area Management (DFAM) Group within the Soo Timber Supply Area (TSA) commissioned a terrestrial ecosystem mapping (TEM) project of this LU. The purpose of the project was to complete a TEM of the LU for use in timber supply reviews and other ecosystem-based resource management activities. Although the project followed a non-standard approach, the mapping was completed according to the Standards for Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping in British Columbia (RIC 1998), where applicable. As per standard TEM projects, the ecosystem mapping was based on the hierarchical ecosystem classification framework, which includes ecoregion units, biogeoclimatic units and ecosystem units. According to licensee requests, and discussions between the mapping contractor, licensee and Ministry of Environment staff in a previous fiscal year, several exceptions were made to the RIC (1998) TEM standards. In short, the following variances from a standard TEM project applied to this project: • Terrain attributes were not mapped; • Structural stage attributes were not mapped (they are being provided under a concurrent VRI program); • The sampling intensity targets applied largely to the productive forest land base (i.e. parkland ecosystems were largely photo interpreted); • The Coastal Mountain-heather Alpine zone was neither mapped nor classified; • FS882 field forms were not completed in the field; and • The expanded legend did not provide a detailed listing of vegetation species by structural stage . In the project area, ecosystem units were mapped within the following four biogeoclimatic (BGC) units: • CWHdm Dry Maritime Coastal Western Hemlock Subzone • CWHvm2 Montane Very Wet Maritime Coastal Western Hemlock Variant • MHmm1 Windward Moist Maritime Mountain Hemlock Variant • MHmmp1 Windward Moist Maritime Mountain Hemlock Parkland Variant ii TEM REPORT: MAMQUAM LANDSCAPE UNIT Soo Licensee Group TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..............................................................................................I EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................. II 1 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Project Background ......................................................................................... 1 1.2 Objectives ........................................................................................................ 2 1.3 Study Area ....................................................................................................... 2 1.3.1 Biophysical Classification ................................................................... 4 2 METHODOLOGY: ECOSYSTEM MAPPING .................................................. 7 2.1 Polygon (Ecosystem) Delineation ................................................................... 8 2.2 Field Planning.................................................................................................. 8 2.3 Field Sampling................................................................................................. 8 2.4 Data Entry and Analysis .................................................................................. 9 2.5 Ecosystem Mapping......................................................................................... 9 2.6 Expanded Vegetation Legend........................................................................ 10 2.7 Limitations..................................................................................................... 10 3 RESULTS: MAPPED BGC UNITS AND ECOSYSTEMS .............................. 11 3.1 Biogeoclimatic Units ..................................................................................... 11 3.1.1 CWHdm............................................................................................. 13 3.1.2 CWHvm2........................................................................................... 14 3.1.3 MHmm1............................................................................................. 15 3.1.4 MHmmp1........................................................................................... 16 3.1.5 Non-vegetated units........................................................................... 17 4 QUALITY CONTROL ......................................................................................... 18 4.1 Internal Quality Control................................................................................. 18 4.2 External Quality Control................................................................................ 18 5 REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 19 iii TEM REPORT: MAMQUAM LANDSCAPE UNIT Soo Licensee Group LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Descriptions of the BGC units mapped within the Mamquam LU....................... 6 Table 2. Area summary of mapped BGC units................................................................. 11 Table 3. Distribution of site series within the Mamquam LU. ........................................ 13 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Mamquam LU - Location Map ........................................................................... 3 Figure 2. Pacific Ranges Ecoregion.................................................................................... 5 Figure 3: Mamquam LU - BGC Overview ....................................................................... 12 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 1: Ecosystem Unit Mapping – Background Appendix 2: Expanded Legend – Mamquam LU ( tem_4518_el.pdf ) iv TEM REPORT: MAMQUAM LANDSCAPE UNIT Soo Licensee Group 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Project Background The Mamquam Landscape Unit (LU) is home to a wide variety of resources and resource users, including forestry, hydro generation, and recreation. A key first-step to striking a balance between the ecological, economic, and community requirements of each is to prepare a seamless inventory of the terrestrial ecosystems across the landscape, through the process of terrestrial ecosystem mapping (TEM). As defined in the TEM standards (RIC 1998), terrestrial ecosystem mapping is the stratification of a landscape into discrete map units, according to a combination of ecological features, primarily climate, physiography, surficial material, bedrock geology, soil and vegetation. Together, the ecological features result in distinctive and repeatable patterns of site conditions and climax vegetation communities (site series) across the landscape. Each site series typically depicts a narrow range of relative soil moisture and nutrient content, which relates directly to the site productivity or potential. Broadly speaking, the ecosystem polygons typically demarcate areas of homogeneous site conditions and productivity and largely contain repeatable patterns of vegetation species. Completion of terrestrial ecosystem mapping provides a planning framework for a wide range of ecosystem-based management applications including: • base-case analysis in timber supply reviews (TSRs), • ecosystem distribution and sensitivity analysis, • long-term ecological monitoring, • habitat supply modeling and assessment, • rare ecosystem, plant or animal mapping / modeling, • forest development, silviculture, site productivity (SIBEC) planning, • riparian, biodiversity planning, • wildfire risk analysis, and • other operational and strategic planning initiatives. The Soo TSA Licensee Group commissioned this project with funds shared from the participating members’ respective Forest Investment Account (FIA) allocations. As developed and refined through previous discussions, this project deviated from the 1998 RIC TEM standards,