A field guide to ecosystem classification and identification for southeast British Columbia.
Abstract
This field guide presents site classification and identification information for ecosystems of the East Kootenay in the Kootenay-Boundary Region of British Columbia. It replaces LMH 20 (Braumandl and Curran 1992) for the areas it covers and provides an entirely new forest and non-forest site classification for existing and newly mapped biogeoclimatic subzones/variants. The new classifications and mapping provide important baseline ecological conditions for natural resource conservation and management, including forestry, the environmental assessment process, and assessing potential effects of climate change, and the cumulative effects of management activities. The field guide is being released with a new provincial biogeoclimatic ecosystem map for British Columbia (BEC version 11). Changes to mapping cover the areas described in the field guide and apply to the Selkirk and Rocky Mountain Resource Districts in the Kootenay-Boundary Region.