Biophysical processes and bioregional planning: The Niagara Escarpment of southern Ontario, Canada

The Niagara Escarpment is the dominant landscape feature of Southern Ontario and has been designated a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. As with many such natural features, the resource planning and management strategies developed tend to be based upon the present-day situation rather than upon a recognition of the changing and evolving nature of the feature. To develop strategies incorporating change demands that a knowledge be gained of the processes operating in those components of the ecosystems in which measurable activity will take place within a planning framework; that is a timescale of several decades. In this particular case, the context is natural resource planning for the scarp face itself. The critical system elements are those related to earth surface processes, forest ecosystem dynamics, and in particular, their interrelationships. Different planning objectives require information at differing spatial scales. Yet these objectives must be related, whether they are local site-specific issues, or are related to the maintenance of the biodiversity of the whole 725 km of the Escarpment. One way to achieve these goals is to establish a hierarchical system of spatially nested land units. These units, however, must be based on the underlying biophysical processes responsible for the dynamics in any one of these spatially determined frameworks. In this case, the underlying biophysical processes relating to geomorphology and forest ecosystem dynamics are found to be influenced by one of three dominant slope forms. The recurrence of these slope forms throughout the Escarpment then permits 9 distinct regional land units to be identified. Within these units, site-specific analysis examines earth surface/forest interactions and change. Subsequently, from these site specific analyses data are accumulated to develop a more general model of earth surface/forest ecosystem interaction for the Escarpment as a whole.