Agricultural Land-Use Change in Prairie Canada: Implications for Wetland and Waterfowl Habitat Conservation
2011
Rashford, Benjamin S. | Bastian, Christopher T. | Cole, Jeffrey G.
Wetlands and waterfowl in the prairie pothole region (PPR) of North America are inextricably linked to agriculture. Government and private agencies must therefore understand agricultural land-use change to implement effective conservation. We develop a land-use model to predict the proportion of land in eight agricultural uses in Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. We then use the model to simulate future land use to better understand the potential impacts of agricultural land-use change on wetland and waterfowl habitat. We also simulate acreage-based subsidy programs to investigate their potential effectiveness as conservation payment programs. Last, we compare predicted subsidy impacts across space with waterfowl densities to highlight the potential for spatial targeting to increase conservation cost-effectiveness. Our results indicate that agricultural expansion and intensification are likely to continue, with a predicted increase of over 10 million acres of intensive spring crops. Predicted conversion of pasture land (which contains the most productive wetlands and waterfowl habitat) is heterogeneous across Canada's pothole region, suggesting the potential for spatially targeted conservation programs. Simulations of alternative conservation targeting strategies indicate that limited conservation dollars should be targeted toward high-quality habitat that is at relatively low risk of converting.
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