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Restoration approach influences carbon exchange at in-situ oil sands exploration sites in east-central Alberta

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Abstract

Oil sands exploration activities across the Alberta boreal peatlands requires tree clearing and results in sites being left compressed and with altered understory vegetation. Restoration techniques, including planting trees, mechanical mounding with tree planting, and spreading coarse woody debris have been tested across abandoned oil sands exploration sites. In this study two oil sands exploration sites were monitored 6- and 9-years post-treatment, along with two control areas disturbed 20 years ago with no active restoration treatment. Results were compared to a natural reference site to understand how various restoration techniques influenced carbon flux and growing season carbon balance. Tree ingress was observed across all parts of the restored oil sands exploration sites except a wet control area disturbed 20 years ago. The creation of dry microsites through the mechanical mounding technique substantially increased tree productivity, and we found that 9 years post-restoration the mounded area of an oil sands exploration site had a tree net primary productivity similar to the natural site. This carbon uptake, however, was partially offset by large emissions of methane from pools adjacent to mounds. We found that planting trees only could result in a growing season carbon balance that is within the range of a natural peatland 9 years following restoration. However, our estimates indicate that the mounding treatment 9 years following restoration released less carbon to the atmosphere overall compared to all other restoration treatments and control areas. This restoration technique may be useful if the restoration goal is focused on returning the carbon storage function at disturbed sites. As well as understanding attainability of restoration goals, evaluating ecohydrologic conditions of oil sands exploration sites pre-restoration is critical for informing the most appropriate restoration technique.

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Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the University of Waterloo Dataverse repository. https://doi.org/10.5683/SP2/S6QE8E.

Code availability

The statistical program R 3.6.1 (R Core Team 2019) was used for inferential statistics. The code is available from the corresponding author by request.

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Acknowledgements

Cenovus Energy provided funding for this project, site access, and established the restoration treatments and study plot design. Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) provided funding for this project through NSERC Industrial Research Chair for Colleges grant to BX. The authors would like to thank Geoff Sherman, Melissa Kucey, Daniel Monaco, Brittany Whiteman, Frankie NcCorchuk, Sarah Ashe, Jorden Hayes, and Spencer Thome for their help in the field and laboratory. Comments from two anonymous reviewers greatly improved the manuscript, and we thank Barbara Murray for final proofreading.

Funding

Cenovus Energy provided funding for this project, site access, and established the restoration treatments and study plot design. Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) provided funding for this project through NSERC Industrial Research Chair for Colleges grant to BX.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NAIT Centre for Boreal Research, 8102 99 Ave, Peace River, AB, T8S 1R2, Canada

    Kimberley R. Murray, Melanie Bird & Bin Xu

  2. Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Maria Strack

  3. Cenovus Energy, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Michael Cody

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  1. Kimberley R. Murray
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Correspondence to Kimberley R. Murray.

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Conflict of interest

This project was partially funded by Cenovus Energy. Michael Cody is employed by Cenovus Energy.

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Murray, K.R., Bird, M., Strack, M. et al. Restoration approach influences carbon exchange at in-situ oil sands exploration sites in east-central Alberta. Wetlands Ecol Manage 29, 281–299 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-021-09784-x

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