In 2017 the Kenow wildfire burned thirty-eight percent of Waterton Lakes National Park (WLNP) in southern Alberta at high to very high severity in mere hours. The ecological impacts of the fire will have implications for resource management, including the practice of ecological restoration, for decades to come. In this thesis I ask two main questions. First, in what ways are people who are involved in managing WLNP’s ecosystems experiencing the effects of the Kenow wildfire, and how does their experience combined with the severity and extent of the Kenow wildfire influence park management and ecological restoration approaches in WLNP? Subsidiary to this, I ask, what is the role of history, and the role of future climate projections in managing the post-fire landscape? This research is part of the larger Mountain Legacy Project (MLP), which is systematically repeating historic survey photographs taken in the early 1900s across Canada’s mountain landscapes. I use third-view photographs in photo-elicited semi-structured interviews with park staff to answer my first question. In my second research question I ask what broader themes and specific issues do third-view repeat mountain photographs elicit about ecological restoration and park management. As a follow up, I inquire into what ways photo-elicitation functions as an effective method in park management research? Fourteen participants were interviewed, the majority were resource conservation staff, in addition to one retired park warden, a member of the cultural resources unit, a communications staff, and a former staff member. Participants felt wide-ranging emotions relating to the Kenow fire including grief over loss, happiness about regrowth, excitement about learning, anxiety about people’s safety, and stress over increased workloads. Park management frames vegetation regeneration after the Kenow fire as renewal, accepting that the landscape may look different than it did before the fire. Climate change is only beginning to be integrated into ecological restoration, though park management is adapting to climate change by encouraging renewal under a new climate. Historical knowledge still guides decision making in several ways. Major restoration projects including invasive species management, whitebark and limber pine restoration, and prescribed burning, were all impacted by the Kenow fire. Participants shared their thoughts on unconventional approaches such as novel ecosystems, highlighting misunderstandings and misapprehensions about the concept. Parks Canada has an opportunity to learn from Waterton Lakes’ experience to help streamline their post-emergency response in the future. Findings relating to my second question show these themes and issues were discussed most often by participants when looking at the third-view mountain photographs: fire behaviour, regeneration/renewal, and ecological impacts of the Kenow fire; encroachment; prescribed burning; personal narratives; ecological effects of climate change; and other snapshots. Just less than half the participants did not engage significantly with the photos, which highlights a challenge in using researcher chosen photos. However, many participants did engage and had much to say about the photos, including sharing memories and personal stories. Pre-determined interview questions were essential in unearthing the findings in this thesis, as the photos did not elicit this information alone. / Graduate

This thesis explores the forces of change in lives and landscapes that have altered the Lamosangu-to-Everest route in northeastern Nepal and shows how a transect in photographs and conversations across the east-central Himalaya allows us insight and a greater understanding into the processes and consequences of this change. Three forces of change over the last twenty-five years dominated discussions with local informants: the rise of the "People's War"-Nepal's Maoist Insurgency beginning in 1996; the Democratic Revolution of 1990; and dependence on tourism for livelihood after the establishment of Sagarmatha National Park in 1976. Understanding the cultural-historical context for these forces is necessary to understand the concerns of today's residents living along the Lamosangu-to-Mount Everest Base Camp transect. The visual and ethnographic evidence discussed in this thesis takes a larger role than strict analysis of conspicuous large-scale land use change and I hope the comparative 200 I images will be used as benchmarks for future research as well as for further exploration into the ways people and place have been represented.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Geography / Kevin Blake / The American West is a land of great diversity and stark contrast. It is also a landscape marked by rapid change as a result of such forces as globalization, population growth, and heightened interest in natural resources (either for recreation or extraction). This dissertation investigates these changes to the region through a repeat photography analysis. Between 1982 and 1984, Thomas and Geraldine Vale traveled along U.S. Highway 89 from Glacier National Park, Montana to Nogales, Arizona. Their subsequent work, Western Images, Western Landscapes: Travels Along U.S. 89 (University of Arizona Press, 1989), contained fifty-three photographs from this journey, representing a cross section of the West from border to border. Nearly every facet of the region was represented, from the remote prairie landscapes of Montana to the bustling Phoenix downtown, and from the largest open pit mine in the world to seldom visited corners of Yellowstone National Park. Between March 2009 and August 2010, I retraced the steps taken by the Vales and successfully rephotographed all of the locations contained within their book. The observed continuity or change is examined thematically in order to address the landscapes and cultures of the West in greater detail. Specifically, chapters within this dissertation visually and textually describe changes that have occurred along national borders, within Native American reservations, throughout the rural landscapes and national parks of the region, within the many resource extraction industries, and within towns and cities of every size. Significant findings, which are well depicted in the photographic pairings, include heightened national security along the borders, problems of overuse in many parks and protected areas, the transition of traditional small towns into communities increasingly dependent upon tourism for survival, and both beautification and revitalization efforts taking place in the urban cores of Phoenix and Salt Lake City. By painting a vivid picture of recent Western geography, this research provides for greater ability for residents and scholars of the region to understand the forces at work within their communities and surroundings.

Magister Scientiae (Biodiversity and Conservation Biology) - MSc (Biodiv and Cons Biol) / Areas of high biodiversity and complex species assemblages are often difficult to manage and to set up meaningful monitoring and evaluations programmes. Mountain Fynbos is such an ecosystem and in the Cape of Good Hope (part of the Table Mountain National Park) plant biodiversity over the last five decades has been in decline. The reasons are difficult to speculate since large herbivores, altered fire regimes and even climate change could be contributors to this decline which has been quantified using fixed quadrats and standard cover-abundance estimates based on a Braun-Blanquet methodology. To provide more detailed data that has more resolution in terms of identifying ecological processes, Fixed-Point Repeat Photography has been presented as a management “solution”. However, photography remains a difficult method to standardize subjects and has certain operational limitations.

Fire exclusion has defined 20th century forestry practices in North America and produced many unintended consequences. In the Canadian Rocky Mountains, the removal of fire from the landscape caused significant landscape changes over the past century. Mountain forests are now more uniform in stand composition and structure, and understorey diversity is reduced. These changes mean that forests are now more susceptible to high-intensity, difficult-to-control wildfires. Re-introducing Indigenous led historical burning patterns modeled on traditional burning techniques can be a restoration technique for these highly altered ecosystems. Indigenous fire regimes that emphasized regular, low-intensity burning created forests that had less fuel build up and were not as susceptible to dangerous wildfires. In order to effectively re-introduce historical fire regimes onto the Canadian mountain landscapes, it is essential to understand the history of human management of landscapes with fire. This project uses new methods of oblique image analysis that build on recent developments in oblique image analysis to examine the historical management of a portion of the traditional territory of the Stoney Nakoda Nation that overlaps present day Kananaskis Country in Alberta, Canada. While it is difficult to capture low-intensity Indigenous burns using traditional fire reconstruction methods, in-depth analysis of historical photos taken before the introduction of fire suppression laws may reveal new insights into historical fire regimes. Images were classified using machine learning software and compared to images classified by a human to verify the accuracy of the machine learning software. A case study of georeferencing images was also conducted, with the landcover estimates generated by georeferenced images compared to oblique estimates. Spatial signatures of Indigenous burning were identified and applied to repeat image sets to look for visual evidence of Indigenous burning on the landscape. The results from this study provide a useful starting point for further research into repeat photography and Indigenous burning. / Graduate

This study used a comparison of one hundred and forty-eight historical (1888-1913) and current (2008-2014) oblique photographs from thirty-two stations to identify land cover changes that have occurred in portions of the Bow and Elbow valleys as well as surrounding Kananaskis Country region. Implications of these changes for flooding and flood management were explored. Forest cover was found to have drastically increased over the past century, particularly in the Bow valley, as did areas of direct human development. In the same time period, grasslands increased in the Elbow valley but decreased in the Bow, while regenerating areas decreased uniformly throughout both valleys. An analysis of pre (2008)-and-post (2014) flood conditions demonstrated no change in coniferous forest cover in both valleys over the 6-year period, but uncovered a decline of 20% in the Elbow and 3% in the Bow in the broadleaf/mixedwood category. The Elbow’s channel zone was larger in 2014 compared to 2008, whereas the extent of the Bow’s channel zone remained constant. However, both the Bow and Elbow’s bare exposed bars increased substantially, most likely as a result of the 2013 flood. The major source of water flows that contributed to the 2013 flood event originated in high elevation rock and scree areas, which, unlike floodplains, are elements of the watershed that cannot be manipulated over time. It is now recognized that forest cover should act as a buffer to floods. Nevertheless, the 2013 flood event occurred despite the massive buffering effect of a huge increase in older forest stands across the study area. The final discussion includes recommendations for improving flood management in the area. / Graduate / 0329, 0768, 0478 / tanya.taggarthodge@gmail.com

Changes within and beyond the alpine treeline ecotone are hypothesized to respond to climatic changes and to be controlled by site-specific conditions. Repeated photographs show significant changes in the alpine treeline ecotone of Goodsir Pass in Kootenay National Park, B.C. over the past century. Field work revealed increases in tree density within the ecotone, and a 150 vertical metre increase in the elevation of the ecotone, at a rate of 2.2 metres/year. Change within the ecotone of Goodsir Pass is more closely related to temporal climatic variability than to site-specific spatial variability. Repeated photographs from three National Parks in the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains show this change to be a typical but dramatic example. Results at several scales indicate that the occurrence, magnitude and type of change in the alpine treeline ecotone and the drivers of that change are most influenced by the regional ecologic and geo-climatic setting or context.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to design and implement a web application focused on rephotography management. Analyze existing solutions, create list of features and simple graphical user interface. It also includes a design of API structure to communicate with the mobile application. Essential application requirements include adding photos on a map and combining different photos in a photo editor with enhanced auto-alignment features.

This thesis examines landscape change from 1889 to the present within the foothills-parkland ecoregion of Waterton Lakes National Park (WLNP) in southwestern Alberta, Canada. Land cover dynamics are explored qualitatively and quantitatively using Geographical Information Systems and a combination of historical and contemporary data sources including: (1) Dominion Land Survey (DLS) transect records (1889), (2) repeat oblique photographs (1914 and 2004) and repeat aerial photography (1939 and 1999). Results indicate a consistent increase in woody vegetation cover, particularly aspen forest cover, within the foothills-parkland since 1889, largely at the expense of native grasslands. The primary drivers of these changes likely include: climatic influences, changes to the historical grazing regime, the suppression of natural fire cycles and the cessation of First Nations’ land management practices. This research illustrates the value of integrating multiple historical data sources for studying landscape change in the Canadian Rockies, and explores the implications of this change for ecological restoration in the foothills-parkland of WLNP.

This thesis examines landscape change from 1889 to the present within the foothills-parkland ecoregion of Waterton Lakes National Park (WLNP) in southwestern Alberta, Canada. Land cover dynamics are explored qualitatively and quantitatively using Geographical Information Systems and a combination of historical and contemporary data sources including: (1) Dominion Land Survey (DLS) transect records (1889), (2) repeat oblique photographs (1914 and 2004) and repeat aerial photography (1939 and 1999). Results indicate a consistent increase in woody vegetation cover, particularly aspen forest cover, within the foothills-parkland since 1889, largely at the expense of native grasslands. The primary drivers of these changes likely include: climatic influences, changes to the historical grazing regime, the suppression of natural fire cycles and the cessation of First Nations’ land management practices. This research illustrates the value of integrating multiple historical data sources for studying landscape change in the Canadian Rockies, and explores the implications of this change for ecological restoration in the foothills-parkland of WLNP.