The Foothills Natural Region, located on the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains, covers approximately 66,000 km2 or 10% of the province. Characterized by variable terrain and a moist, cool climate, the lower slopes consist of rolling hills and plateaus with of mixture of grassland, deciduous, and mixedwood forests. At higher elevations, slopes become steeper and conifer forests predominate. Streams with headwaters originating in the Rocky Mountains frequently bisect the landscape. As a transitional ecosystem between the Rocky Mountain Natural Region to the west and the Grassland and Boreal Natural Regions to the east and north, biodiversity in the foothills is generally a mix of these surrounding regions. Human footprint is presented for the Foothills Natural Region.
As of 2016, human footprint occupied 29.73% of the Foothills Natural Region. Forestry was the dominant human footprint covering 20.15% of the region, followed by agriculture footprint (3.17%), energy footprint (3.12%), and transportation footprint (1.74%).
FIGURE: Summary of percentage cover of total human footprint broken down by human footprint category in the Foothills Natural Region, circa 2016.
Between 1999 and 2016, the total area of human footprint in the Foothills Natural Region increased by 12.17%, from 17.56% to 29.73%. Almost all of this increase can be attributed to the expansion of forestry footprint, which increased by almost 11% (from 10.29% to 21.15%). The remaining footprint types also increased during this time frame by a combined total of 1.77%.
FIGURE: Trend in the percentage area of total human footprint, and by human footprint category in the Foothills Natural Region between 1999 and 2016. Click on the entries in the legend to turn human footprint categories on and off.