Wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) are forecast to retract in their ranges due to climate change, and potholes that typically contain ponded water year-round, which support a larger proportion of biological communities, are most sensitive to climate change. In addition to climate, land use activities and topography also influence ponded water amounts in PPR wetlands. However, topography is not typically included in models forecasting the impacts of climate change on PPR wetlands. Using a combination of variables representing climate, land cover/land use and topography, we predicted wetland permanence class in the southern Boreal Forest, Parkland and Grassland natural regions of the Alberta PPR (N = 40 000 wetlands). We show that while climate and land cover/land use were strong predictors of wetland permanence class, topography was as important, especially in the southern Boreal Forest and Parkland natural regions. Our misclassification error rates for the gradient boosting models for each natural region were relatively high (43–60) though our learning rates were low (< 0.1) and our maximum tree depths shallow (5–7) to balance bias and overfitting. Clearly, factors in addition to climate, topography and land cover/land use influence wetland permanence class (i.e., basin size, depth, ground water connectivity, etc.). Despite classification errors, our results indicate that climate was the strongest predictor of wetland permanence class in the Parkland and Grassland natural regions, whereas topography was most important in the southern Boreal Forest Natural Region among the three domains we considered.
Related Resources
Vegetation Diversity in Mountain Peatlands
Resource Date:
2021
Organization
Restoration Approach Influences Carbon Exchange at In-Situ Oil Sands Exploration Sites in East-Central Alberta
Resource Date:
April
2021
Evaluating the Hydrological Response of a Boreal Fen Following the Removal of a Temporary Access Road
Resource Date:
January
2021
Organization
The Role of Hummocks in Re-establishing Black Spruce Forest Following Permafrost Thaw
Resource Date:
December
2020
The Biophysical Climate Mitigation Potential of Boreal Peatlands During the Growing Season
Resource Date:
October
2020
Organization
Roads Impact Tree and Shrub Productivity in Adjacent Boreal Peatlands
Resource Date:
May
2020
Organization
Was this helpful?
|