Characterizing the impacts of seismic lines on the water budget of a Boreal Watershed in Alberta (Western Canada)

Abstract

Study region: A 706 km2 watershed located in a heavily industrialized region near Fox Creek, Alberta, Canada. Study focus: Petroleum exploration has increasingly disturbed boreal ecosystems in North America. Seismic lines are one of the major footprints of the petroleum industry: they form cleared linear corridors in forests and their regeneration is generally poor. For this study, field measurements of soil, vegetation, water and snow were conducted on 5 paired (seismic line and adjacent undisturbed area) sites located in lowland and upland ecosites, and a 1-D physically based hydrologic model, the Simultaneous Heat and Water Model (SHAW), was used to investigate the impacts of seismic lines on the water budget over a year. New hydrological insights for the region: Field measurements indicate that parameters, including soil water content and temperature, vary according to a complex combination of factors and are highly site-specific between seismic lines and undisturbed areas. Hydrological modeling of the two ecosites (lowland and upland) showed up to a 33 % reduction in evapotranspiration and a decrease in percolation (leading to none) below the root zone on seismic lines. Considering that there are 2300 km of seismic lines in the study area and that 36 % of the forest has been cleared for industrial activities, these results suggest that the water budget is impacted by anthropogenic lineaments. Climate change will likely intensify these impacts.

Keywords

• Seismic lines
• Hydrology
• Canadian boreal forest
• Alberta
• 1-D modeling
• Critical zone monitoring