Sustainable Resource and Land-Use Development

Meeting the societal need for resource (e.g. oil and gas, timber) and land-use development while maintaining environmental sustainability can be challenging. As the human population grows, so does the need for resource and land-use development for that population. Developing sustainable development remains a global challenge. We strive to help assess and improve sustainable development in relation to aquatic ecosystems. For example, industrial activities related to the exploration and development of natural resources have created large networks of roads that we've shown to negatively impact aquatic ecosystems (Maitland et al. 2016a). Prioritization methods that consider at-risk species can help mitigate problem these problem stream crossings (Maitland et al. 2016b). Other projects include: assessing the impact of oil sands development on aquatic ecosystems (Donner et al. 2018; Shotyk et al. 2018; Sun et. al. 2017), assessing spills and determining bio-accumulation of metals in aquatic ecosystems. Click on the photos, articles or news items to learn more about some of the research we are conducting on sustainable resource development! Note: * Lab members.