Mapping What We Cannot See: How Technology and Traditional Knowledge Protect the Boreal Wetlands

Canada’s boreal forest is more than just trees. Almost half of the land that Mercer Peace River manages in its FMAs is wetlands, and protecting it requires understanding the landscape beyond what can be seen.

The Problem with What We Can’t See

In the boreal forest of northwestern Alberta, water is everywhere. Not always on the surface, but woven through the landscape in ways that have shaped these ecosystems for thousands of years. Peatlands,  fens, bogs, marsh,  seasonal wetlands and even flow channels below the surface that shift with snowmelt and rain.

Standard mapping products are able to capture major waterbodies: the lakes, rivers, and streams that are large enough to show up on aerial photography. But the near-surface wet areas, the water table, the small flow channels that connect the landscape hydrologically—these have historically been determined only through observations on the ground.

Knowing where waterways and wet areas are is crucial for sound forest management to avoid soil compaction,  rutting, sediment transport or disruption of drainage patterns that have functioned for millennia.

“You can’t manage what you can’t see,” says Lee Rueb, Woodlands Manager at Mercer Peace River. “And for decades, MPR and the industry as a whole were seeking opportunities to provide a detailed understanding of where wet areas were on the landscape.”

Seeing Differently with LiDAR

Alberta’s Wet Areas Mapping (WAM) initiative changed that.

Developed through a partnership between the provincial government, the University of New Brunswick, and industry partners, WAM uses airborne LiDAR technology to create digital elevation models at one-metre resolution by flying over the forest, firing thousands of laser pulses per second at the ground. The lasers reflect off of the vegetation with some penetrating the canopy to also measure the distance to the surface. When analyzed, the data creates a three-dimensional model of the topography.

From that model, hydrologists can predict where water flows and accumulates across the entire landscape—even in places where you’d never see standing water.

“Traditional mapping of water in landscapes results in capturing only major water bodies,” explains Gord Whitmore, Strategic Management Superintendent at Mercer Peace River. “But the unseen, near-surface wet areas, the water table, and small water channels that can result in unexpected costs, delays, or environmental damage are not captured.”

WAM takes this elevation data and applies hydrological modelling to produce a “depth-to-water index”—predicting, with remarkable accuracy, how far below the surface water is likely to be at any given point.

From Data to Decisions

At Mercer Peace River, wet areas mapping is now a standard layer in the planning process. The company manages approximately 2.7 million hectares of boreal forest under two 20-year renewable Forest Management Agreements with the Province of Alberta.

The WAM data tells planners where hydrological sensitivities are. It informs where to buffer, where to avoid operating during certain conditions, and where to plan seasonal access. Wet soils have lower bearing capacity, so areas identified as wet during spring thaw or after significant rainfall are avoided to prevent soil compaction and rutting. Road placement decisions rely on WAM data to minimize hydrological disruption.

The Layer Science Cannot Provide

But here’s what the LiDAR can’t see.

It can’t identify a medicinal plant gathering area that a community has used for generations. It can’t flag the trapline that supports a family’s livelihood. It can’t distinguish between a seasonal wetland and a place of deep spiritual significance.

For that, Mercer Peace River needed a different kind of data.

In 2019, the company launched phase I of the Traditional Land Use (TLU) project with Indigenous communities across its Forest Management Areas. Funded jointly by the Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta (FRIAA) and Mercer, these projects enable Indigenous communities to document and share their knowledge of the land.

The mechanism is the Spatial Viewer, a web-based GIS platform developed by Silvacom FMS. It’s designed to be accessible to both technical and non-technical users, allowing community members to enter data directly—burial and birthing sites, cultural campsites, medicinal plant areas, streams of significance, hunting and trapping areas, and traditional trails.

“At the heart of the TLUs is the community-led collection of knowledge and data,” says Rueb. “Under a traditional land use agreement, Indigenous communities can employ their members to investigate and document important parts of the landscape.”

Where the Layers Meet

Inside the Spatial Viewer, all of these data layers exist together.

A forester planning a harvest block can toggle between LiDAR-derived topography, wet areas mapping, provincial datasets, high-resolution imagery with a “leaf-on, leaf-off” feature that digitally removes foliage to reveal ground conditions, and traditional land use data shared by Indigenous communities.

The visual effect is striking. What appears on a standard provincial map as undifferentiated forest becomes, layer by layer, a landscape of values. A fen that WAM data flags as hydrologically sensitive may also be documented as a medicinal plant-gathering area. A predicted flow channel might align with a waterway that a community has known for generations—before any satellite ever saw it.

“We can enter into a more informed dialogue about Mercer’s plans and the data we have, and the community’s values and interests on the land base,” says Rueb.

Beyond Avoidance

The TLU process isn’t simply about identifying places to avoid. It’s about understanding how to operate—and whether to operate at all—in ways that respect multiple values on the same landscape.

“It’s not necessarily about ‘do or don’t operate,'” Whitmore explains. “It’s more about ‘how.’ And if we operate in an area with key values identified, what do we need to consider to protect and maintain those values?”

Mitigation might include additional buffers around moose lick complexes, large unharvested retention areas for caribou, reduced site preparation to ensure regeneration of berries or medicinal plants, or timing restrictions during sensitive periods. In some cases, harvesting may even align with community interests—moose habitat benefits from early-successional forest, and reducing fuel loads can lower wildfire risk.

Planning on a 200-Year Horizon

Mercer Peace River’s forest management plans operate on a 200-year planning horizon, with detailed plans updated every 10 years to incorporate new data, science, and input from Indigenous communities.

The TLU projects continue to evolve. The company is exploring new capabilities for the Spatial Viewer, including ways to incorporate Indigenous place names into its mapping systems.

“We’re looking at ways to include these Indigenous place names into our own shared mapping system,” says Whitmore, “which we think will be a benefit in consultation when we can speak to elders and community members using the names they know.”

The boreal forest will always hold more than any map can show. But the mapping Mercer Peace River uses today—combining LiDAR technology, hydrological modelling, high-resolution imagery, and traditional land-use knowledge—comes closest to representing the landscape as it actually is.

Not just timber volumes. Not just watercourses. But a living system that has sustained people and wildlife for millennia, and must continue to do so for centuries to come.

About World Wetlands Day: World Wetlands Day is celebrated annually on February 2 to raise awareness of the importance of wetlands. The 2026 theme, “Wetlands and Traditional Knowledge: Celebrating Cultural Heritage,” spotlights the role of traditional knowledge systems in sustaining wetland ecosystems.