Ecosystem Classification of the Northwest Territories
Northern landscapes, with their vast forests, numerous wetlands, bogs, lakes and rivers, play an important role in enhancing our environment by producing clean air and clean water. These landscapes can be grouped and described as smaller ecological regions (ecoregions), using several physical characteristics at a variety of scales.
The Northwest Territories (NWT) is developing an ecologically based landscape classification for environmental assessment, cumulative effects management, biodiversity monitoring and reporting, forest resource analysis and planning, wildlife habitat evaluation and conservation, and protected area identification. The NWT Ecosystem Project started in 2004 – to revise the ecozones and ecoregions of the NWT, as they were defined under the Canadian National Ecosystem Framework. The revision process recognises the need to obtain an updated ecosystem classification that reflects best current information and analytic techniques, and that can be used to better manage natural resources in the NWT.
Ecological classification and mapping for the NWT are presented within an ecoregion framework for continental North America that includes four levels, from very large Level I ecoregions that represent ecosystems of global extent, to relatively small Level IV ecoregions that may cover only a few hundred square kilometres.
NWT includes parts of three Level I ecoregions: Tundra, Taiga and Northwest Forested Mountains. These can be further divided into eight Level II ecoregions and 17 Level III ecoregions.
Links
Taiga Plains
Taiga Shield