The Office of Graduate Programs is pleased to announce that Joseph Appiah will be defending their dissertation entitled “ Anthropogenic Activities Contribute to Changes in Forest Cover in the Shale Oil and Gas Region of Northeastern British Columbia” as a candidate for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Natural Resources and Environmental Studies. We encourage you to view the defence online. The details on the defence and how to join are included below.

DATE: April 20, 2020

TIME: 9:00 AM

LINK TO JOIN: Meeting URL https://bluejeans.com/671667148?src=join_info Meeting ID 671 667 148

To ensure the defence proceeds with no interruptions, please mute your audio and video on entry and do not share your screen inadvertently. The meeting will be locked to entry 5 minutes after it begins, ensure you are on time.

The boreal forest ecosystems have been changing due to different levels of anthropogenic land use processes such as logging, oil and gas activities, and agriculture. However, the cumulative impacts of these processes are likely to lead to a lasting degradation of the boreal forest ecosystem; and thus, contributing to environmental change. In this study, methods from Landscape Ecology, GIS, and remote sensing were used to process Landsat images and spatial data for shale gas infrastructure. These datasets and methods were used for measuring and assessing the forest change pattern in a study area in northeastern British Columbia (BC). The results of the study show that gross loss (5.98%) of coniferous forest cover in the timber harvest land base (THLB) is higher than the rate of gross loss (3.22%) of the coniferous forest cover in the area outside the THLB. However, the rate of net loss in coniferous forest cover is smaller in the THLB than that of outside the THLB (net loss THLB=0.6%; net loss non-THLB=1.7%). These dynamics in forest cover suggests that it is more likely for forest cover to regenerate much faster in the THLB than outside the THLB. The quantity of forest cover loss (0.163%) from shale oil and gas well pads development is more than the amount of forest loss from shale oil and gas access roads (0.017%) and pipeline development (0.057%). A higher amount of forest fragmentation is associated with periods and locations that have a high amount of anthropogenic-induced land classes in the landscape. These results of the study could serve as the information for modelling land change and fragmentation in the future. The finding from this study could assist land managers in the allocation of land uses across space as well as the formulation of effective and efficient policy frameworks and management initiatives.