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British Columbia Mine Reclamation Symposium

An assessment of species-based, structural, and functional diversity at the Teck Highland Valley Copper Partnership mine Smyth, Clint R.; Melaschenko, Natalie Christina; Iverson, Melissa Ann; Anderson, Jeff; Dickson, Jaimie; Doucette, R.; Straker, Justin

Abstract

Mining companies in Canada, through corporate initiatives and their membership in the Mining Association of Canada, have implemented biodiversity conservation management programs. A valuable tool in assessing the success of these programs is the calculation of biodiversity indices. Biodiversity indices, when calculated alongside summary statistics of vegetation cover and plant-traits, provide useful descriptions of ecosystem composition, structure, and function. Biodiversity indices were calculated for two separate databases at the Teck Highland Valley Copper Partnership (HVC) mine in south-central British Columbia. The two mine-site datasets analyzed included plot data collected for an ongoing reclamation-monitoring program and plot data from a Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping (TEM) program. Both datasets contain data from forest harvesting and mining disturbances while only the TEM program dataset contains undisturbed or “naturally” disturbed (i.e., wildfire and insect infestation) ecosystem data. Comparisons of biodiversity indices between on-site and off-site plots in both datasets revealed information on ecosystem structure and function useful for reclamation planning and monitoring as well as in the assessment of ecosystem services.

Item Metadata

Title
An assessment of species-based, structural, and functional diversity at the Teck Highland Valley Copper Partnership mine
Creator
Smyth, Clint R.; Melaschenko, Natalie Christina; Iverson, Melissa Ann; Anderson, Jeff; Dickson, Jaimie; Doucette, R.; Straker, Justin
Contributor
British Columbia Mine Reclamation Symposium; University of British Columbia. Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering
Date Issued
2016
Description
Mining companies in Canada, through corporate initiatives and their membership in the Mining Association of Canada, have implemented biodiversity conservation management programs. A valuable tool in assessing the success of these programs is the calculation of biodiversity indices. Biodiversity indices, when calculated alongside summary statistics of vegetation cover and plant-traits, provide useful descriptions of ecosystem composition, structure, and function. Biodiversity indices were calculated for two separate databases at the Teck Highland Valley Copper Partnership (HVC) mine in south-central British Columbia. The two mine-site datasets analyzed included plot data collected for an ongoing reclamation-monitoring program and plot data from a Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping (TEM) program. Both datasets contain data from forest harvesting and mining disturbances while only the TEM program dataset contains undisturbed or “naturally” disturbed (i.e., wildfire and insect infestation) ecosystem data. Comparisons of biodiversity indices between on-site and off-site plots in both datasets revealed information on ecosystem structure and function useful for reclamation planning and monitoring as well as in the assessment of ecosystem services.
Subject
Biodiversity; Ecosystem; Function; Monitoring; Plant-traits; Mine reclamation; Structure
Genre
Conference Paper
Type
Text
Language
eng
Date Available
2017-08-23
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
DOI
10.14288/1.0354678
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/62804
Affiliation
Non UBC
Peer Review Status
Unreviewed
Scholarly Level
Other
Rights URI
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International