Project Returns for Riparian Area Assessment of the Lesser Slave Watershed

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.