In 2022, the Coastal Douglas-fir Conservation Partnership (CDFCP) and UBC Botanical Gardens came together with the aspiration of producing a digital biodiversity atlas and climate adaptation tools that will provide First Nations, local governments and land managers with the resources they need to make informed decisions related to biodiversity in a changing climate.
The online atlas will help identify areas of high biodiversity and carbon value. The biodiversity atlas will include mapping layers such as:
- Land cover and land cover change
- Environmentally Sensitive Areas
- Terrestrial forest carbon
- Ecosystem connectivity
- Species at risk and of cultural value
- Hydrologically sensitive ecosystems
The biodiversity atlas is being produced as part of a project called Action for Adaptation.
The mapping project has two streams. The first is focused on using new technology including Planet Satellite imagery at 3 m resolution and LiDAR to create accurate and rapid mapping (land cover and terrestrial carbon).
The second is focused on using existing provincial mapping and interpreting the information held in these layers to enable local governments and First Nations to apply this information to their decision making. The Sunshine Coast Mapping pilot was focused on the second stream of work and generated the following layers;
- Potential Ecological Communities at Risk
- Potential Sensitive Ecosystems
- Hydrologically Sensitive Ecosystems
- Climate Micro-refugia
