Plant community, environment, and land-use data from oil sands reclamation and reference wetlands, Alberta, 2007–2009

Abstract

Our goal was to evaluate the success of wetland reclamation efforts on oil sands mining company lease-holdings in Alberta, Canada. Already, 60 200 ha of land have been disturbed by mining, and an additional 419 800 ha will be mined in the future. Wetland reclamation efforts have been underway for 35 years, and current mine closure plans call for the construction of 15 840 ha of wetland habitat. There are, however, no accepted criteria by which the Alberta Government can evaluate constructed wetlands. We employed the reference condition approach, comparing reclamation wetlands to appropriate natural analogues with plants as bioindicators of wetland condition. The data set includes 74 wetlands, spanning a range in salinity, nutrient levels, size, and degree of human disturbance. Reclamation wetlands include those contaminated with oil sands tailings (oil sands process affected, OSPA, n = 13) and those free from tailings (oil sands reference, OSREF, n = 12). In contrast, some natural wetlands are exposed to ...