New Online Platform Will Improve Understanding of  Impacts of Cumulative Effects on Our Environment

March 9, 2021                                                      Ottawa, Ontario                                                   Natural Resources Canada

Even during a pandemic, Canada continues to strengthen the economy while protecting and conserving our natural environment, supporting our natural resource sectors and mitigating the impacts of climate change. Increasing our understanding of the long-term cumulative effects from human activities is essential in making decisions that impact our future well-being.

This is why Natural Resources Canada, in partnership with Environment and Climate Change Canada, has launched the Open Science and Data Platform (OSDP) for cumulative effects, an innovative online tool that provides Canadians with access to data and scientific publications that can be used to understand the cumulative effects of human activities.

Cumulative effects are the accumulated changes in the environment caused by interactions between human activities and natural processes that have long-lasting impacts on the environment and the health and well-being of Canadians. Examples include changes to wildlife populations, changes in the ways in which ecosystems function, increases in non-native plants and permafrost melt. Understanding the effects of such activities will support science-based decision-making and help us better manage our land, its biodiversity, our water and other natural resources. 

With the OSDP, Canadians and Indigenous communities, including scientists, researchers and policy-makers, can contribute to and easily access cumulative effects information, which until recently was widely dispersed across numerous government websites and repositories. Users can search cumulative effects content and view, combine and download data and publications and stay informed of proposed or current development activities across the country. The OSDP leverages the Federal Geospatial Platform (and its public facing site, Open Maps) which brings together open federal, provincial and territorial geospatial data to enable users to explore location-based data on the Government of Canada’s open Government Portal. By leveraging the Federal Geospatial Platform, the OSDP’s data provides enhanced access to provincial and territorial data, historical time series data and maps, surveys, satellite Earth observations and scientific models.

The platform is an ambitious undertaking, and this is a first step that will continue to improve as user feedback is collected and analyzed. New data and publications will be added regularly to include the best available information relevant to cumulative effects and development activities in Canada. Visit the OSDP to learn more.