Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 325 (2022) 109127

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Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agrformet

Upland reclamation promotes forest evaporative losses in the Boreal Plains

of Canada: A comparison of carbon and water fluxes
M. Graham Clark a, *, Richard M. Petrone b, Sean K. Carey a
a
School of Earth, Environment & Society, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
b
Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Reclaiming upland boreal forests as part of post-mining watershed construction in the Athabasca Oil Sands
Reclamation Region (AOSR) requires evaluation criteria as these novel ecosystems develop. Here, we analyzed 55 site-years of
Boreal forests eddy covariance observations of constructed forests and soils on formally pit-mined landscapes (9 sites) and
Oil sands
contrasted them to 18 site-years of post-harvested ecosystems (3 sites) and 38 site-years of mature Boreal Plains
Evapotranspiration
Productivity
ecosystems (3 sites). After approximately 5 years, the post-harvested sites had fluxes of gross primary produc­
Eddy Covariance tivity (GPP), evapotranspiration (ET), and water use efficiency (WUE) within the variability of the widely studied
mature Boreal Plains BERMS FLUXNET sites. However, even after 10 years the constructed forests had signifi­
cantly lower WUE than the mature sites. High ET fluxes drove low WUE in the constructed upland conifer sites
despite similar rates of GEP. Conversely, in the constructed broadleaf forests low GEP, despite similar ET,
resulted in low WUE. A climate sensitivity analysis showed that there was little impact of abnormal hot, cold,
wet, or dry growing seasons on GEP or evapotranspiration (ET) at the constructed forests. It is presumed that the
high moisture retaining properties of the soils used in reclamation produced the low WUE and resilience to dry
and hot conditions in constructed forests. Placing moisture retaining soils incorporates a degree of resilience to
climate variability but also limits downgradient water yields to low lying wetlands in the relatively dry AOSR
climate. This highlights a potential shortcoming of reclamation objectives developed for specific ecosystems
when scaling from ecosystem to watershed scale construction. Finally, robust relationships between satellite
observed greenness (MODIS EVI and NDVI) and ecosystem scale fluxes highlight how remote sensing-based
metrics can be used by land managers to identify regions within landscape units that may be under performing.

1. Introduction AOSR reclamation projects to “display characteristics of resilience to

Landscapes impacted by oil sands mining in the Athabasca Oil Sand
Region (AOSR) are required to be restored to the “equivalent capability”
of the landscape prior to disturbance (Section 146(b) of the Environ­
mental Protection and Enhancement Act; Government of Alberta, 2020).
The current objective is to reconstruct integrated Boreal Plains land­
scapes, including upland forests, wetlands, and lakes to benchmarked
criteria. Once reclamation criteria are met, the operator may apply for a
reclamation certificate, which releases the owner from further obliga­
tions (Gosselin et al., 2010). The reclamation criteria in the document
“Criteria and Indicators Framework for Oil Sands Mine Reclamation
Certification” (Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Devel­
opment, 2013) are based on point in time structural qualities of eco­
systems or are vaguely defined functions. Specifically, the objective of
natural disturbances and climatic variability” has no clear criteria upon
which to evaluate and certify success (Alberta Environment and Sus­
tainable Resource Development, 2013).
The evaluation of forest resilience to climate extremes has extensive
precedent. Typically, it involves monitoring productivity and/or water
use in relation to stressors (e.g. Anderegg et al., 2018; a global assess­
ment of species diversities impact on forest-drought resilience). Resil­
ience in this specific context is the capacity to restore pre-disturbance
growth rates (productivity), water loss/retention (evapotranspiration),
or both (water use). Both productivity and evapotranspiration are
regularly measured through the eddy covariance (EC) technique, the
most widespread method for observing ecosystem-atmosphere exchange
of water, energy, and carbon. Within the Canadian context, EC has been
applied to assess the resilience of northern forest systems relative to

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: dr.mg.clark@gmail.com (M.G. Clark).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2022.109127
Received 24 January 2022; Received in revised form 14 June 2022; Accepted 8 August 2022
Available online 23 August 2022
0168-1923/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
M.G. Clark et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 325 (2022) 109127

disturbances such as fire (e.g. Amiro et al., 2003; Mkhabela et al., 2009; 1996) indicate that the study period (2003–2020) included nine
Coursolle et al., 2012), insect bark and leaf damage (e.g. Speckman growing seasons (June-August) with temperatures in the top quartile of
et al., 2015; Stephens et al., 2018), drought (e.g. Kljun et al., 2006; all 71 years of reanalysis growing season temperatures (2006, 2008,
Petrone et al., 2015; Anderegg et al., 2018), and harvesting (e.g. Hum­ 2011–2017), and two years in the bottom quartile (2005, 2018). Using
phreys et al., 2005; Mkhabela et al., 2009; Coursolle et al., 2012; Pet­ the difference between the annual precipitation and PET data from the
rone et al., 2015). In this study EC will be used to contrast ecosystem same reanalysis product indicated the study covered five wet years in
recovery after harvesting to recovery after construction and compare the top quartile (2007, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020) and four dry years in
both to a mature system. This comparison will include analyzing how the bottom quartile (2004, 2009, 2012, 2015).
climate impacts productivity and water use as a specific metrics of In total 9 constructed forests sites were analyzed in various stages of
resilience. reclamation covering 55 growing seasons (Table 1; Fig. 1). Six of the
An independent expert panel, assembled by the Royal Society of sites were all located on the Syncrude Canada Ltd. Mildred Lake Mine
Canada, encouraged a whole new conceptualization of reclamation to lease: South Bison Hill (CONB-SB30), Sandhill Fen Watershed Upland
deal with the large scales involved in returning open pit AOSR mines to (CONB-SFWUP), Sandhill Fen Watershed Perched (CONB-SFWP), Coke
the equivalence of landscapes prior to disturbance (Gosselin et al., Beach (CONC–CKB), Jack Pine (CONC-JP), and Southwest Sand Stor­
2010). Broadly, this new approach was to perceive the new landscapes age (CONC-SWSS). Three sites were located on the SUNCOR Millennium
as “hydrological response areas”, with ecosystems integrated as specific mine lease: Nikanotee Fen Uplands (CONC–NIU), Wapisiw (CONB-
“hydrological units” or building blocks within the broader landscape WAP), and Cell-11A (CONC–C11A). All sites are within 40 km of Fort
(Devito et al., 2012). This design philosophy hinges on the movement, McMurray (56◦ 43′ 35′′ N, 111◦ 22′ 49′′ W), in northern Alberta, Canada.
and storage of water in the landscape, something that is critical to All nine constructed forests were built as forested upland Boreal
maintain diverse Boreal Plains ecosystems in the cyclic wet/dry climate Plains hydrological units. Various combinations of Jack Pine, White
of the region and to the transport of contaminants of interest that can Spruce, Black Spruce, Balsam Poplar, Trembling Aspen, and Siberian
impact human or ecological health. Thus, the flux of water is something Larch (Larix sibirica) were planted at the nine sites (Table 1). Despite the
closely monitored within the constructed landscapes already and EC variety of species planted at each site, the seasonality of the fluxes from
systems are widely deployed to monitor the evapotranspiration of wet­ the forest sites typically fell into one of two general categories: broadleaf
lands (Nicholls et al., 2016; Ketcheson et al., 2017; Scarlett et al., 2017; and conifer. Conifer sites were CONC-JP, CONC-SWSS, CONC–NIU,
Biagi et al., 2021; Volik et al., 2021, 2021b), lakes (Clark et al., 2021), CONC–CKB and CONC–C11A, which were either planted with domi­
and forests (Carey 2008; Ketcheson et al., 2017; Strilesky et al., 2017; nant covers of Siberian Larch (CONC-SWSS), White Spruce
Biagi et al., 2021; Chasmer et al., 2018; Sutherland et al., 2017), as well (CONC–CKB) or Jack Pine (CONC-JP, CONC–NIU, CONC–C11A).
as to constrain modeling estimates upon which hydrological response Except for CONC–CKB all the other sites with spruce plantings were
areas and units are designed (Lukenbach et al., 2019). The extensive grouped with broadleaf because of the extensive aspen or poplar
monitoring network on constructed landscapes in the AOSR, both
spatially and temporally, may also be used to evaluate the development Table 1
of reconstructed upland forests and contrast that development to nearby A list of sites and features. Cover depth is the designed depth of soil cover over
harvested sites and mature sites. the fill. Fill may be tailings, coke, or some other combination of mine waste
In this study, we seek to illustrate how the EC technique in con­ material. Soil covers are a mix of mineral soils and peat. Initial species planting
structed and harvested landscapes can be used to assess the development densities are reported where available, otherwise just species names are given. A
of productivity and water use, and its variance in response to climate. In planting density of 0 indicates that it was specifically highlighted as natural
this assessment, we analyze an extensive monitoring network containing colonization in Straker et al. (2019) and N/A indicates the data was unavailable.
55 site-years of EC data from nine constructed forest systems in the Site Planted Species Year EC Years Cover
AOSR and compare it to 56 site years of mature and post-harvest (original planting Planted depth
density in stems [cm] (peat
reference sites. The main objectives of this study are: 1) determine the
per hectare) content
time it takes for surface-atmosphere exchanges of carbon and water to [%])
return to levels of natural variability; and 2) assess the resilience of the
CONB-SB30 White Spruce 2003 2003–2015, 100+ (80)
constructed forests by analyzing both productivity and water use in Aspen (1944 2017–2019
years of climatic stress. combined)
CONB- Aspen (0) 2012 2013–2015, 55 (90)
2. Methods SFWUP Balsam Poplar (0) 2017–2019
White Spruce
CONB-SFWP Aspen (0) 2012 2014–2015 75 (90)
2.1. Study sites Balsam Poplar (0)
CONC–CKB White spruce (N/A) 2007 2017 50 (9)
The AOSR is within the Boreal Plains ecozone, which is a landscape CONC-JP Jack pine (2900) 1993 2007–2012 55 (8)
CONC-SWSS Jack Pine 1996 2005–2006, 55 (5)
of subdued relief composed of low-lying, typically peat filled, valleys
White Spruce 2014–2015
and forested plain ecosystems (Wiken et al., 1996). Dominant tree spe­ Balsam Poplar
cies are White Spruce (Picea glauca), Black Spruce (Picea mariana), Trembling Aspen
Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea), Jack Pine (Pinus banksiana), Tamarack Siberian Larch
(Larix laricina), Trembling Aspen (Populus tremuloides), Balsam Poplar (Various
combinations at
(Populus balsamifera), and Birch (Betula spp.) (Wiken et al., 1996). AOSR 2000 total)
climate is dry, with short hot summers and long cold winters (Köppen CONC–NIU Jack pine (572) 2014 2013–2020 35 (0)
Dfc). At the Fort McMurray A meteorological station (Climate ID Black Spruce (900)
3062693), the climate normal (1981–2010) mean temperature was 1 ◦ C CONC–C11A Jack pine (1565) 2006 2017–2018 25 (48)
Trembling Aspen
with an average of 419 mm a− 1 of precipitation. However, annual po­
(400)
tential evapotranspiration (PET) is 520 (±30 SD) mm and the region Paper Birch (200)
typically experiences dry summers that are occasionally punctuated CONB-WAP Aspen (N/A) 2013 2018–2020 51 (N/A)
with wet years (roughly twice every decade) providing some ground­ Balsam Poplar (N/
water recharge (Devito et al., 2012). Global NCEP/NCAR climate A)
Jack Pine (N/A)
reanalysis data (resolution of 1◦ , spanning 1950–2021) (Kalnay et al.,

2
M.G. Clark et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 325 (2022) 109127

Fig. 1. The study region, 40 km north of Fort McMurray. Inset shows the location of the constructed forests in the Athabasca Oil Sand Region (ASOR), the harvested
sites at Utikuma lake (P40) and the mature sites at the BERMS FluxNet sites in Canada. These maps were made with freely available data products from Google Earth
(main image) and Statistics Canada (2016).

overstory in the first decade of growth at each site (Straker et al., 2019). the Boreal Plains ecozone. Although all three regions (AOSR constructed
Worth noting, despite planting jack pine at CONC-SWSS in 1996, by sites, Utikuma Lake harvest sites, and Mature BERMS sites) have the
2014 the CONC-SWSS site was dominated by Siberian larch (11%), same continental subarctic climate regime (Köppen classification of DfC)
aspen (7%) poplar (6%) and understory vegetation (Straker et al., 2019). the relevant differences from the nearest climate station are also pre­
Three harvested sites from the Utikuma Lake area (250 km from the sented here (Table 2).
AOSR sites) were used to contrast the development of the AOSR con­
structed forests. The uplands in the Utikuma Lake study area in which 2.2. Data collection and processing
these forest sites are located is primarily composed of low relief rolling
moraines and the associated glacial overburden soils. Red Earth Creek 1 All flux data was computed using the EC technique (Baldocchi et al.,
(HAR-P40S) and 2 (HAR-P40N) were harvested a year apart, in 2006 1988) by determining the covariance between the 3-dimensional wind
and 2007, respectively. There is 10 years (HAR-P40S) and 4 years (HAR- and gas concentrations at 10 Hz to calculate the 30 min block averaged
P40N) of data post-harvest plus one year of pre-harvest for each site. flux. Density (Webb et al., 1980), as well as low and high pass filtering
There was also an EC tower erected directly within the harvested site at corrections were applied as needed. Gap filling is necessary in EC
HAR-P40N in the 2 years following logging, hereafter called HAR-P4SN.
The harvested forests were all broadleaf forests of Aspen and Balsam and
Table 2
are naturally regenerating. Detailed site information for the harvested
Climatological (1981–2010) differences between the nearest Environment and
forests is given in Brown et al. (2014) and Petrone et al. (2015). Climate Change Canada meteorological station (Fort MacMurray A [ECCC
In addition to the comparison to the harvested sites, gap-filled fluxes Climate ID 3062693] is approx. 30 km south of the constructed sites, Wasbasca
from three mature (i.e. “old growth”) Boreal Plains sites were down­ RS [ID 3076908] is approx. 100 km east of the harvested sites, and Prince Albert
loaded from FluxNet (https://fluxnet.org) for an undisturbed mature [ID 4056240] is approx. 80 km south of the mature sites. *Wasbasca RS has no
flux reference. These sites are part of the Boreal Ecosystem Research and available cloud cover data, so instead cloud data comes from the next closest
Monitoring Sites (BERMS) just over 500 km away from the AOSR and station Peace River A [ID 3075040] ~110 km west of the harvested sites.
cover 15 years of an Aspen dominated forest (MATB-Oas), 12 years of a Region Constructed Harvested Mature
Black Spruce dominant forest (MATC–Obs), and 10 years of a Jack Pine sites
dominant forest (MATC–Ojp). In addition to the Aspin overstorey at Climate station elevation 369.1 544.7 428.2
MATB-Oas, there is 2-m understory of hazelnut and the occasional bal­ Mean annual temperature 1.0 1.7 1.4
sam poplar. The soils at MATB-Oas are Orthic Gray Luvisol. MATC–Obs Mean annual precipitation 418 462.1 427.7
Hours per year of 0–20% cloud cover 2159.2 2107.3* 2548.8
also has ~10% tamarack coverage with hummock-hollow micro
Hours per year of 30–70% cloud cover 2019.4 2223.8* 198.7
topography and feathermoss/lichen forest floors. The soils at Hours per year of 80–100% cloud cover 4587.7 4433.7* 4229.9
MATC–Obs are classified as Peaty (20–30 cm) Orthic Gleysols. Within Days with >= 0.2 mm precipitation 142.5 116.4 121.3
the MATC–Ojp site, there are some isolated groups of green alder and Days with > 5 mm precipitation 23.6 27.7 25.2
the forest floor is mostly lichen and feathermosses and the topography is Days with maximum temperature > 174.7 172.8 175.2
10 ◦ C
negligible. MATC–Ojp soils are classified as either degraded Eutric
Days with minimum temperature > 153.1 155.1 156.2
Brunisol or Orthic Eutric Brunisols. All 24 sites in this study are within 0 ◦C

3
M.G. Clark et al.
processing to determine monthly and seasonal fluxes as all EC systems
have periods where data needs to be removed (e.g. maintenance, pre­
cipitation events, stability, etc.) and general signal quality control pro­
cessing. A mean of 29.4% of the growing season fluxes were missing and
required gap filling for seasonal totals (see supplementary table ST1 for
breakdown of gaps by year and site). Gaps were filled with artificial
neural networks following the process outlined in Clark et al. (2019).
Daily fluxes were calculated only from days with less than 6 h of gap
filled data (i.e. at least 18 h of observations) and monthly mean fluxes
were only reported if there were at least 22 days in the month of daily
data. Site specific instrumentation is reported in the supplementary
material (Table ST2) but most sites used a combination of LI-7500 IRGA
(LI-COR Biosciences) and CSAT-3 anemometer (Campbell Scientific
Inc.).
The flux of CO2, or net ecosystem exchange (NEE), was partitioned
into the difference between gross ecosystem productivity (GEP) and
ecosystem respiration (ER). ER was directly observed at night (when
incoming shortwave radiation was <10 W m− 2 and friction velocities
>0.3) when GEP was assumed to be zero. Occasionally young sites (11
site-years of constructed and 8 site-years of harvested) did not have
sufficient data at night with friction velocities >0.3, for these either a 0.2
or 0.1 threshold was used depending on sample depth (a list of site-years
and minimum threshold is provided in supplementary table ST3). An
exponential relationship between night-time ER and soil temperature
was used to interpolate ER for all periods and was adjusted for season­
ality over a moving window each year following the methods described
in Humphreys et al. (2014). Daytime GEP was then calculated as the
difference of measured NEE and modelled ER. The rate of evaporation
relative to productivity, the water use efficiency (WUE), was calculated
based on the amount of GEP (in g of C–CO2) per kg of water evaporated
from the ecosystem. Surface conductance (Gs) and aerodynamic
conductance (Ga) were from inverting the Penmen-Monteith equation
Fig. 2. The nine sites used in this study. Left image for each site is the earliest growing season image available on Google Earth, right image is August 2020. The dates
the images were taken is provided in month/year format in the upper corner of each image. Yellow circles indicate a 250 m radius around the eddy covariance
instruments, the maximum extent that could be integrated into a single 250 m MODIUS pixel.
4
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 325 (2022) 109127
following the methods of Helbig et al. (2020). Because of the inconsis­
tency between the seasonal deployment of EC equipment, growing
season fluxes were defined as the period from June to August, inclu­
sively, to limit the amount of shoulder season data that would otherwise
require interpolation to produce seasonal fluxes at some sites.
The surface area of photosynthetic activity is directly related to the
ecosystem productivity (Reed et al., 1994; Pettorelli et al., 2005). The
typical metric of surface area is leaf area index (LAI). LAI was observed
at most sites in mid-summer. However, some sites were never measured
and due to logistical challenges, some years were missed at other sites. In
addition to missing data, LAI observations are at times limited to one
observation a year and the available record contains some difference in
the collection methods over the decades of observation (Straker et al.,
2019). As an additional metric of photosynthetic surface area, the
16-day 250 m resolution quality controlled enhanced vegetation index
(EVI) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from the
MODIS satellite platform were downloaded from the USGS EARTHDATA
portal (https://lpdaacsvc.cr.usgs.gov/appeears/). EVI and NDVI indices
provide both a continuous index of photosynthetic surface area for all
site years and the phenology of the growing season. For each site, the
250 m pixel that contained the flux tower was downloaded for the entire
age of the site. The exception is CONC-JP and CONC-SWSS, which were
planted before either MODIS instruments were operational. For those
two sites, the MODIS coverage is limited to 2003–2020. Pixels flagged by
the USGS as cloud covered or erroneous were removed from the record
and a 64-day moving widow (4 observations) was used to downscale the
data by linear interpolation to a daily frequency. Then, as suggested by
Pettorelli et al. (2005), each timeseries was smoothed with a 60-day
running mean to limit the influence of artifacts in the imagery. In
addition to limiting the impact of artifacts, smoothing the satellite data
reduces the impact of spatial heterogeny (e.g. proximity to mining
infrastructure) that could bias a single 250 m MODIS pixel covering a
M.G. Clark et al.
smaller site (Fig. 2). Monthly and seasonal mean values were then
calculated from the downscaled daily data. Although the smoothing
method reduces the max greenness observed in the growing season, it is
consistently applied across the harvested, constructed and mature study
sites and thus should not impact this analysis but should be noted for
inter-study comparability.
2.3. Data analysis
All regressions reported in this paper were either ordinary least
squares (OLS), hereafter referred to as ‘linear’, or a negative exponential
non-linear least squares of the form β1(1-e(β2(x+ β3)), hereafter referred
to as simply ‘non-linear’. Only significant (α = 0.05) R2 are reported for
linear models. However, all non-linear models are reported with the root
mean square error (RMSE) to indicate the average deviation from the
curve. To simplify the visualization of plots with daily data (due to the
high number of growing season days, n > 5000) the Y data was binned
and the mean value of each bin is plotted instead. Each plot had 18 bins,
where data was grouped by 5 percentile increments of the X data in the
plot from 5 to 95. Such that the first point is the mean of 5th < bin ≤
10th percentile of the X data, the second point is the mean of the 10th <
bin ≤ 15th percentile, and so on. For example, when ET was plotted as a
function of the vapor pressure deficit (VPD), only the mean ET corre­
sponding to each 5-percentile bin of VPD would be plotted. To assess the
role of daily atmospheric conditions on drought, ET was modelled using
a multivariate linear regression of the predictors: incoming shortwave
radiation (Kdn), mean air temperature (Ta), VPD and Gs. To demon­
strate how observed fluxes can be scaled to the whole hydrological unit,
the relationship between ET, GEP and WUE were modelled with OLS to
the MODIS derived greenness indexes.
The resilience of the forest to climate stress was tested in two ways.
First, a drought coupling and drought sensitivity index were calculated
at the daily scale via the methods of Anderegg et al. (2018), which were
modified from Sulman et al. (2016) and Novick et al. (2016). Anderegg
et al. (2018) demonstrated how this approach can be utilised to compare
drought resilience across the wide diversity of forests around the world.
Briefly, the drought coupling is the coefficient of determination from a
standardized linear model of ET as a function of VPD, soil moisture, and
their interaction term for June, July, and August. Likewise, the drought
sensitivity was the sum of the absolute coefficients, including the
interaction term of soil moisture and VPD. The second method assessed
resilience with a climate sensitivity analysis using the impact of hot,
cold, wet, and dry years on the relationship between greenness and ET,
GEP fluxes and WUE. Hot (cold) years were all growing seasons with
temperatures greater than the 75th percentile (lower than the 25th
percentile) and wet (dry) growing seasons with total precipitation
greater than the 75th percentile (lower than the 25th percentile). Since
there is an underlying age trend to the data, absolute fluxes are difficult
to compare in a year-to-year evaluation of the impact of climate. Instead,
given a quantity of satellite observed photosynthetic surface area, stress
should manifest itself as lower productivity or greater water loss per unit
of productivity. This approach can be justified because there were no
significant differences in EVI between climate years binned by normal,
wet, dry, hot, and cold (One-Way ANOVA; p-value 0.58 and 0.31 for
normal/wet/dry and normal/hot/cold years, respectively). Since the
product of EVI and Ta, the product of EVI and Kdn, and NDVI was found
to explain the most variance in ET, GEP, and WUE, respectively (see
analysis below), these relationships between fluxes and greenness were
used as the basis to evaluate the impacts of climate variability by
analyzing the regression coefficients of a multilinear model using hot,
cold, wet, or dry years as binary variables in addition to the linear
relationship of greenness on ET, GEP and WUE, respectively. To mitigate
the need for a large model of interaction terms that would over-fit the
dataset, wet/dry were analyzed separately from hot/cold since those
years are mutually exclusive (i.e. hot and cold years are not possible,
unlike hot wet years). Finally, direct comparison of fluxes was
5
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 325 (2022) 109127
performed using a one-way ANOVA for mean ET, GEP, fluxes and WUE
of the mature sites and the disturbed sites in age classes of <5 years, 5–9
years, and 10+ years since disturbance. Significant differences in means
were determined by a post-hoc Bonferroni test an alpha of 0.05.
3. Results
3.1. Evapotranspiration
The ET-age relationship explained a similar amount of variance be­
tween the constructed conifer (RMSE = 32.3 mm) and constructed
broadleaf (RMSE = 40.1 mm) forest groups (Fig. 3A). Generally,
broadleaf sites had greater rates of ET for the same age (Fig. 3A). Year-
to-year variance in ET was large compared to the age trend and any age
trend appeared negligible after 5 years (Fig. 3A). Overall, there was a
minor positive age trend in drought sensitivity (Fig. 3B) and drought
coupling (Fig. 3C) in the constructed sites (RMSE of the age sensitivity
model is 0.23 and 0.20 and coupling model is 0.63 and 1.57 for
broadleaf and conifer, respectively). The trend was more defined with a
lower error in the harvested sites (RMSE 0.13 and 0.63). SB30 at age 4
and 14 had the strongest drought coupling (0.77 and 0.78), but both of
those years had typical sensitivity (1.0 and 1.1; Fig. 3B). The greatest
sensitivity was in SWSS at age 10 (4.3) but it was not well coupled
(0.28). While ET was closely tied to GPP (R2 = 0.37 and 0.48, p-values <
0.01, for broadleaf and conifer, respectively; Fig. 3D), the relationship
was much tighter for the mature sites (R2 = 0.84, p-value < 0.01).
ET fluxes from the harvested forests were similar to the constructed
forests. The variance in the age-trend was lower than the constructed
forests (RMSE = 17.9). The age trend was also similar, but with a steeper
slope (i.e. faster recovery) when compared to constructed broadleaf
forests (Fig. 3A). It is likely that the steepness of the slope, and thus the
rate of recovery, was driven by the oldest two site years with much
higher ET fluxes (Fig. 3A). The drought sensitivity of the harvested sites
had a more rapid age trend than the constructed forests and the drought
coupling showed a similar lack of age trend (Fig. 3B,C). However, the ET
fluxes from the harvested sites were more closely coupled to produc­
tivity than the constructed sites (R2 of 0.77) but not as tight as the
mature sites. The ET flux in both the mature and harvested sites had a
greater response to productivity (greater slope) and lower base ET
(smaller intercept) when compared to the constructed forests (Fig. 3D).
Atmospheric conditions had a greater impact on ET than stand
development. Specifically, Kdn, Ta, VPD and Gs were the dominant
drivers of ET at the half hourly scale for all ages (Fig. 4). Ordinary least
squares regression of ET vs these variables resulted in R2 for 0.63, 0.25,
0.25, and <0.01 for Kdn, Ta, VPD, and Gs, respectively (all p-value <
0.0001 except Gs which was insignificant with a p-value of 0.36).
Combining the four variables (Kdn, Ta, VPD, and Gs) in a single multi­
variate linear regression accounted for 66% of the variance in the daily
ET observations across all constructed and harvested sites in this study
(p-value < 0.0001). There was a clear increase in ET for any given
variable with age (Fig. 4), but the ET response to Ta and VPD in the older
disturbed broadleaf sites was less than the equivalent in the mature sites.
Harvested sites had the greatest ET fluxes in the 5+ age group for similar
rates of Gs (Fig. 4). The ET response to all four variables was greater in
the constructed conifer sites compared to the mature sites.
3.2. Productivity
The GEP at both conifer and broadleaf sites had a strong relationship
with age (RMSE = 75 and 75 g C m− 2, respectively; Fig. 5A). Although
the rate of change per year was slowing, it remains unclear at what point
it will reach an asymptote. Unlike the mature and harvested sites,
respiration and productivity were not closely associated in the con­
structed forests (R2 of 0.05 and 0.16. p-values >0.05 for broadleaf and
confier, respectively) (Fig. 5B). This is likely due to the use of stockpiled
soils with high organic content and the increased CO2 associated with
M.G. Clark et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 325 (2022) 109127

Fig. 3. (A) Growing season total ET, (B) drought coupling, and (C) drought sensitivity as a function of site age. D) Seasonal total evapotranspiration as a function of
gross ecosystem productivity. The curves for the non-linear (A,B, and C) and linear (D) models are shown for the constructed conifer sites (dark green), broadleaf
(light green), harvested (yellow) and mature (red) sites. Mature sites are not included in the age analyses.

Fig. 4. Mean evaporation from each 5-percentile bin of Kdn, Ta, VPD and Gs for mature, harvested and constructed forests with the harvested and constructed forests
sorted into age classes of <5, 5–9, and 10 or more years since disturbance. Only half hour observations between 10:00 h and 16:00 h local time are shown.

decomposition of the organics. 3.3. Water use

Compared to the constructed forests, the harvested sites had a
greater GEP at every age but with a greater variance (RMSE = 115 g C
m− 2). Both the harvested sites and the mature sites had a close rela­
tionship between GEP and ER (R2 of 0.89, 0.95 and 0.65, p-values all
<0.001 for the harvested, mature conifer and mature broadleaf,
respectively) (Fig. 5B). The mature broadleaf forests and older harvested
sites (age 5+) had greater productivity than every grouping of con­
structed forest for the same level of incoming shortwave radiation.
Unlike the broadleaf, the mature conifer and 10+ aged constructed
confier sites had similar productivity responses to incoming shortwave
radiation (Fig. 5C).
There was a rapid increase in WUE followed by a relatively stable
asymptote for the constructed sites beginning between 5 and 10 years
after planting. WUE in both constructed conifer and broadleaf sites had
similar variance around the non-linear trend (RMSE = 0.31 and 0.27 g
kg− 1, respectively) (Fig. 6). The harvested sites had a similar pattern but
reached an asymptote slightly earlier (approximately after 3 years) with
slightly greater variance (RMSE = 0.38 g kg− 1) and a much higher WUE
than the constructed forests at every age.

6
M.G. Clark et al.
Fig. 5. (A) Total growing season gross ecosystem productivity as a function of age. (B) Growing season total productivity as a function of seasonal total ecosystem
respiration. Regression lines are only shown for significant relationships (p-value < 0.05). (C) Mean binned daily gross ecosystem productivity as a function of age,
binned in 5 percentile increments of Kdn. Dashed lines are conifer sites and solid lines are broadleaf.
Fig. 6. Growing season water use efficiency as a function of age. The colours
represent constructed conifer sites (dark green), broadleaf (light green), and
harvested sites (yellow).
3.4. Greenness
NDVI had a strong relationship to age (Pearson correlation coeffi­
cient (r) of 0.89 and 0.75 for broadleaf and conifer, respectively, p-
7
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 325 (2022) 109127
values < 0.0001) (Non-linear curves shown in Fig. 7A). EVI had a
slightly weaker, but still significant, relationship to age (r = 0.83 and
0.64 for broadleaf and conifer, respectively, p-values < 0.0001) (Non-
linear curves shown in Fig. 7B). EVI at the sites with the dense Jack Pine
planting (CONC-JP and CONC–C11A) was very stable with age. The
harvested sites had a small age trend in NDVI but none in EVI (Fig. 7A,
B). This is likely because tree removal at HAR-P40S and HAR-P40N took
place over an area of <25 000 m2, or <37% of a 250 m × 250 m MODIS
pixel even if it captured the entire logged region. At the constructed
forests sites LAI was positively correlated with both EVI and NDVI (r =
0.72 and 0.60, respectively, both p-value < 0.0001) (Fig. 7C for EVI,
NDVI not shown). The harvested sites had a slightly weaker relationship
between NDVI and LAI (r = 0.57, p-value = 0.017, not shown), but an
insignificant relationship to EVI (Fig. 7C). Both are likely due to the scale
of the MODIS pixel discussed above. The variance in the monthly EVI
and NDVI values were very similar for the study sites (r = 0.84, p-value
< 0.0001) (Fig. 7D).
Correlations between EVI and NDVI and monthly mean ET, GPP, and
WUE indicate that satellite derived greenness provide a robust estimate
of the carbon and water fluxes. All the following OLS regression models
are significant at p-value < 0.0001. Between the different greenness
products analyzed here, EVI x Ta, provided a slightly stronger relation­
ship to ET than NDVI x Ta, (all groups pooled, R2 = 0.64 and 0.47,
respectively) (Fig. 8A,B). Likewise, EVI x Kdn was a similar fit to GEP as
NDVI x Kdn (pooled, R2 = 0.75 and 0.80, respectively) (Fig. 8C,D).
However, the relationship between EVI and WUE (pooled, R2 = 0.19) is
weaker than the relationship between NDVI and WUE (pooled, R2 =
0.57) (Fig. 8E,F). There was negligible difference between the harvested
and mature sties in greenness and ET, GEP and WUE relationships,
except that the harvested and mature sites had greater intercepts in GEP
and WUE due to higher productivity noted above. Because NDVI cap­
tures more of the variance in WUE and the inconsistent relationship of
EVI to WUE, NDVI will be used as the greenness index for the climate
stress analysis on WUE below.
M.G. Clark et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 325 (2022) 109127

Fig. 7. The MODIS derived NDVI (A) and EVI (B) as a function of age. EVI as a function of site MATC–Observed LAI values (C) and relationship between NDVI and
EVI (D). Regression lines shown for conifers (dark green), broadleaf (light green), harvested (yellow) or all the data (black).

Fig. 8. The relationship between satellite data (EVI on top and NDVI on bottom) and ET with air temperature (Ta, A and B), GPP with incoming shortwave radiation
(Kdn, C and D), and WUE (E and F). OLS regression line shown in black, significant at p-value < 0.0001.

3.5. Climate stress
For clarity of interpretation, we only focused on the constructed
forests and sub-set the data into two analyses. Although the interaction
between the subsets may be of value, there were too few years that
represented all nine possible interactions of normal, hot, cold, wet and
dry years running that would likely overfit the model. Therefore, two
separate OLS models were constructed, one of normal, hot and cold
years (mutually exclusive conditions) and one of normal, dry, and wet
years (also mutually exclusive conditions). These basic linear models
indicate how the above relationships between ET, GEP and WUE to
greenness only had slight changes during periods of climate variability
(Table 3 and Fig. 9). ET was slightly higher in dry years, particularly in
low EVI or cool sites (Table 3, Fig. 9A,B). Wet years had little overall
impact on ET, but there was a small decoupling of the relationship
(shallower slope) between ET and greenness in both wet and dry years
relative to the ‘normal’ (Table 3 and Fig. 9A,B). Hot years had a positive
impact on the intercept of the ET model where cool years had a negative
impact on the slope. Productivity as a function of greenness had a slight
negative impact from dry or wet conditions. The slope of the relation­
ship between GEP and EVIxKdn was reduced in cold years (Table 3 and
Fig. 9C,D). WUE was overall greater in most cold years than hot or dry
years, as indicated by the intercept, but the relationship between
greenness and WUE broke down in the cold years as the slope

8
M.G. Clark et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 325 (2022) 109127

Table 3
Standardized regression coefficients for models of climate stress on ecosystem fluxes (equivalent of the non-standardized models shown in Fig. 9). Regressions are
performed on the standardized data (z-score) for comparability, resulting in coefficients that are equivalent to the% variance explained by each variable and intercepts
in units of 1 standard deviation. X is the MODIS derived greenness indicator described in text (when appropriate it is multiplied by the mean Ta or Kdn for that month).
Wet, Dry, Cold, Hot are boolean variables in the model indicating if the observation occurred during the respective climate period and Conif indicates a Boolean if the
observation was from a conifer site. All models have p-values < 0.0001.
Int. X Wet Dry Conif Wet x X iDry x X Conif x X R2

ET − 0.08 0.78 − 0.01 0.11 0.11 − 0.07 − 0.06 − 0.05 0.58

GEP 0.16 0.77 − 0.05 − 0.09 − 0.52 − 0.07 − 0.06 0.05 0.76
WUE 0.17 0.59 − 0.06 − 0.11 − 0.63 − 0.03 0.07 0.16 0.58
Int. X Cold Hot Conif Cold x X Hot x X Conif x X R2
ET − 0.07 0.77 0.05 0.14 0.06 − 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.58
GEP 0.18 0.78 − 0.03 − 0.03 − 0.57 − 0.07 0.08 − 0.10 0.76
WUE 0.21 0.57 − 0.03 − 0.07 − 0.70 − 0.12 0.09 − 0.14 0.59

Fig. 9. Plots of multilinear regression models of key ecosystem response to MODIS derived greenness products during hot, cold, wet or dry years. All OLS models are
significant (p-values < 0.0001). Interaction terms make some lines appear non-linear. The standardized coefficients of each linear model are provided in Table 3.

approached 0 (Table 3, Fig. 9E,F). any age (2.6 ± 0.3 vs 3.5 ± 0.5 and 3.7 ± 0.3 g kg− 1, respectively)
(Fig. 10). Likewise, the WUE at the constructed conifer sites (10+ aged)
were significantly lower than the mature conifer sites (2.1 ± 0.2 and 3.1
3.6. Comparing the constructed, harvested and mature sites
± 0.2 g kg− 1, respectively).
Mean growing season ET in the 10+ aged AOSR reclaimed broadleaf
4. Discussion
forests was not significantly different from the BERMS mature MATB-
Oas site or the harvested sites older than 5 years (264 ± 30, 264 ± 43,
The widespread use of EC allows for a practical assessment of pro­
and 263 ± 34 mm, respectively). However, ET from the constructed
ductivity, evaporation and water use as integrative measures of ‘equiv­
conifer sites greater than 10+ years (211 ± 38) was significantly greater
alence’ to other Boreal Plains ecosystems. This approach is useful for
than the BERMS mature MATC–Obs and MATC–Ojp conifer sites
developing criteria and indicators for post-mining forest recovery and
(combined mean of 165 ± 21 mm) (Fig. 10). The mean growing season
the high correlation to satellite products further expands the ability to
GEP flux in the 10+ aged constructed broadleaf forests was significantly
monitor forest resilience during periods of climate extremes in the
less than both the BERMS mature MATB-Oas site and the harvested sites
AOSR. Furthermore, it is likely this type of analysis would work with
older than 5 years (679 ± 101 vs 920 ± 92 and 1001 ± 109 g C m− 2,
other stressors, such as disease and insect damage, but there were no
respectively) (Fig. 10). The seasonal GEP flux from the constructed
outbreaks during this study period upon which to test this theory. The
conifer sites aged 10+ years were not significantly different from the
following section further discusses: 1) how the constructed AOSR forests
BERMS mature conifer sites (478 ± 65 and 502 ± 68 g C m− 2, respec­
are recovering with age relative to other published Canadian forests; and
tively) (Fig. 10). The WUE in the constructed broadleaf forests (10+
2) how effective this assessment is for monitoring the resilience of the
aged) were also significantly less than the mature or harvested sites of

9
M.G. Clark et al.
Fig. 10. A comparison of the mature (Mat) Boreal Ecosystem Research and Monitoring broadleaf (MATB-Oas) and conifer (MATC–Obs, MATC–Ojp) sites and the
reclaimed AOSR sites of ages <5, 5–9, and 10+ years since planting. Individual site years are plotted with the site symbol. Red line is the median, black line is the
mean, with boxes indicating the interquartile range of all sites in that group. Boxes are coloured according to grouping; constructed conifer (CONC), constructed
broadleaf (CONB), harvested (HAR) and mature conifer (MATC) and broadleaf (MATB). Significantly different (α = 0.05) means were determined with a Bonferroni
test post hoc test, presented in supplementary Table ST4.
constructed forests.
4.1. Post-construction age response
Our results suggest that after 5 years the reclaimed broadleaf forests
have recovered their ET functions on the landscape as shown by the
similar rates of ET as the mature sites (Fig. 10), however ET remains
higher per unit of productivity for all constructed forests (Fig. 3D). The
broad goal of the AOSR reclamation projects is to create integrated
landscapes and therefore the similar hydraulic function of constructed
upland forests to the natural analogues is paramount for supplying
appropriate moisture to downgradient ecosystems (Devito et al., 2012;
Ketcheson et al., 2016). However, evaporation rates from constructed
conifer sites are higher than the natural analogues (Fig. 10) and the high
year-to-year variability makes it difficult to determine if rates are still
increasing with age after 17 years (Fig. 3). High rates of ET relative to
natural conifer stands is likely due to the moisture retaining properties
of the soils used in reclamation. Elsewhere in the Boreal Plains, the
dominant control in both above and below canopy ET rates was soil
moisture (Brown et al., 2014). In this study, CONC–C11A, CONC-SWSS,
CONC–CKB and CONC-JP are all mesic soils, CONC–NIU is classified
as sub-mesic, and all contain more moisture than the xeric soils found
nearby in an undisturbed jack pine site (Straker et al., 2019). Further­
more, although the underlying tailings are primarily sand, the soil cover
contains peat additions and high clay sized fraction content. The per­
centage of sand in the sub-2 mm fraction of the soil cover used in the
constructed of the conifer forests was 60.8% (CONC–C11A), 31.7%
(CONC-SWSS), 32.4% (CONC-JP), and 49.7% (CONC–NIU) compared
to 97.4% in that same nearby undisturbed jack pine site (Straker et al.,
2019). The two mature BERMS conifer sites had a mean total sand
content of 83.3 ± 14.0% in the mineral soils at MATC–Obs (i.e.
non-peat) and 92.2 ± 12.4% at MATC–Ojp (Anderson, 2000). The low
sand content and enhanced storage capacity near the surface of the
constructed conifer forests likely limits drainage, increases soil mois­
ture, and results in the increased evaporation reported here. Another
possible cause of the large ET fluxes from the constructed conifer sites
could be the soil depth used to cover the tailings/overburden during
construction. Huang et al. (2015) determined that 100 cm of soil was
10
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 325 (2022) 109127
required to maintain soil water availability regardless of vegetation
development during extreme climate cycles. The modeling in Huang
et al. (2015) determined that ET increased with soil depth as a
non-linear function of depth with the rate decreasing rapidly around
100 cm. Here the total seasonal ET does increase with soil depth be­
tween sites (Table 1, Fig. 3), however this relationship is confounded by
the age trend as well as the species present and should not be assumed to
be robust to statistical scrutiny. ET as a function of soil depth is only
mentioned here to highlight that both models and eddy covariance ob­
servations indicate soil depth and composition impacts upland ET rates.
This could have big implications on constructing hydrological response
areas (i.e. watershed scale reclamation) when scaling guidelines devel­
oped for specific ecosystems.
Productivity is closely related to stand age (Fig. 5). Although, the
10+ year old constructed broadleaf forests appear to be reaching an
asymptote well below their mature counterparts, the conifers appear to
have reached their expected levels of productivity (Fig. 10). Unlike the
constructed site, the harvested sites appear to have recovered to the
mature productivity levels by their 5th year of growth. All sites are ex­
pected to continue increasing based on the non-linear trends presented
here (Fig. 5). These results align with the findings of Coursolle et al.
(2012) who found a chronosequence of Canadian boreal forest EC sys­
tems showed a peak productivity around ~20 years, with older (~80+
years) forests showing slightly lower fluxes. However, the close rela­
tionship between ET and GEP (Fig. 3) implies that this could lead to
increased ET fluxes without substantial increases in WUE (which appear
to have plateaued much lower than the harvested or mature sites, Figs. 6
and 10). While it is challenging to untangle ET, GEP, fluxes and WUE,
the generally greater WUE in harvested and matures sites combined with
the age trajectories of both GEP and ET suggest that water losses from
the constructed forests may increase in the future and impact down­
gradient ecosystems. This may already be occurring at the constructed
conifer sites, which show greater rates in the half-hour ET fluxes relative
to the mature sites for any level of Kdn, Tair, VPD, or Gs (Fig. 4).
4.2. EC derived fluxes as a resilience metric for reclamation
The purpose of analyzing the impact of climate variability on
M.G. Clark et al.
constructed forests in the AOSR is twofold. First, to quantify if the
constructed forests have similar resilience to disturbance as natural
boreal stands for criteria under the Indicators Framework for Oil Sands
Mine Reclamation Certification (Alberta Environment and Sustainable
Resource Development, 2013). Second, to better understand how
climate anomalies may compound impacts to downgradient ecosystems
in the integrated landscapes of these large-scale reclamation projects.
Kljun et al. (2006) showed that multiple sequential drought years are
required to negatively impact boreal forest ecosystems, but such
multi-year dry conditions did not occur over this study period. Assess­
ment of climate variability on within-year fluxes demonstrated small
impacts to ET, GEP, and WUE (Fig. 9). This finding is similar to the lack
of wet/cold years impact on AOSR fen ecosystems found by Volik et al.
(2021a). Although the drought coupling increased with age (i.e. the
relationship between soil moisture, VPD and ET was tighter) it was no
more sensitive with age or climate anomalies (i.e. the slopes did not
increase). The lack of persistent impacts following a dry, hot, wet, or
cold year suggests that these constructed forests maintain a degree of
resilience to climate variability. Mature Boreal Plains forests increase
WUE during drought periods (Kljun et al., 2006) but unexpectedly the
constructed AOSR forests slightly decreased WUE during dry and hot
years (Fig. 9E,F). This inverse response to dry conditions could again be
related to the soil properties of the constructed AOSR forests. In Boreal
Plains wetlands, deep, high organic content, and low porosity soils may
have been shown to be part of the mechanism for how WUE increases
under wetter conditions (Volik et al., 2021b). In the meantime,
short-term dry periods are unlikely to impact boreal forest productivity
(Kljun et al., 2006), especially if moisture retention in the soils is high
particularly since we defined dry years as a 1 in 4-year event (75th
percentile). These short-term dry periods likely increase overall evapo­
ration from moist soils which in turn leads to a reduced ecosystem level
WUE.
The constructed AOSR forests analyzed here have a similar response
to other studies of boreal forest disturbance. Mkhabela et al. (2009)
found that three post-harvesting jack pine sites (355 ± 137 g m− 2) had
slightly lower productivity than three post-fire jack pine sites (589 ± 67
g m− 2) due to a greater diversity of species in the post-fire sites relative
to the post-harvest sites. The 10+ year GEP fluxes from the constructed
conifer sites (478 ± 65 g m− 2) is very similar to the mean GEP flux 10+
year post-logging recovery presented in Mkhabela et al. (2009).
Although unlike what was presented in Mkhabela et al. (2009), diversity
may not be the key indicator for productivity in the constructed forests.
The greatest productivity in the constructed forest was a site with
dominant stands of both Aspen and White Spruce (CONB-SB30), but the
greatest diversity in tree species was found in CONC-SWSS (Straker
et al., 2019), which only had average (in this study) seasonal GEP fluxes.
However, it may explain the high productivity in the naturally regen­
erated harvested sites (1001 ± 109 g m− 2). In a chronosequence study of
Canadian forest recovery, Coursolle et al. (2012) determine that GEP at
black spruce, jack pine, aspen and mixed wood forests return to natural
variance after ~20 years following disturbance. In the Coursolle et al.
(2012) study, jack pine and black spruce fluxes stabilized between 500 -
800 g C m− 2 y− 1, while the aspen and mixed wood forests GEP was
between 800 and 1200 g C m− 2 y− 1 (both ranges interpreted from
publication figure). These ranges are greater than the 10+ aged GEP
from the constructed conifer (478 ± 65 g C m− 2 y− 1) and broadleaf (679
± 101 g C m− 2 y− 1) forests reported here. It could be that these numbers
are a low estimate since the reported growing season in this study is only
June, July, and August vs the full annual flux reported in Coursolle et al.
(2012). Indeed, Coursolle state the MATB-Oas growing season runs from
17 May to 25 September (131 days) and MATC–Ojp runs from 16 April
to 13 October (180 days), substantially longer than the 91 days included
in the growing season reported here. In another national study, Hicke
et al. (2003) utilized satellite data to determine it took on average 9
years for productivity to return to Canadian boreal forests after fire, but
this is based on satellite observed ‘greenness’, not carbon or water
11
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 325 (2022) 109127
fluxes. This is consistent with the greenness reported in this study
(Fig. 7), however after 10 years the rate of year-to-year change in NDVI
or EVI is still increasing in the constructed conifer forests. There are
fewer studies of other forms of disturbance on boreal forests. In one,
Stephens et al. (2018) found that even during extreme defoliation by
tent caterpillars it took only months for the BERMS MATB-Oas site to
return to expected productivity levels. Aside from the year of caterpillar
outbreak, and the three-year drought (analyzed and reported by Kljun
et al., 2006), the biggest impact to annual productivity rates was the
timing of spring thaw. In this study however, mean May temperature
was not significantly correlated to seasonal GEP (r = 0.20, p-value =
0.185, analysis not shown) and the constructed AOSR forests had a
negligible productivity response to overall hotter growing seasons
(Fig. 9; Table 3).
Overall, the constructed AOSR forests appear to be responding in a
manner similar to other disturbed sites but may have a longer trajectory
back to peak productivity than the harvested sites compared here
(Fig. 5). The minimal response to dry or hot conditions also suggests a
resilience to climate variability. It is unlikely that this resilience mech­
anism is a function of the diversity found in undisturbed forests (i.e.
Anderegg et al., 2018), but rather by soil attributes designed to promote
high moisture retention during climate cycles (Huang et al., 2015).
Although it is favorable for the forests to be resilient to drought,
excessive retention and evaporation can deprive downgradient ecosys­
tems of water. Furthermore, this study joins other work (e.g. Chasmer
et al., 2018) to highlight how eddy covariance systems can be coupled
with satellite derived greenness indexes to monitor entire constructed
forests giving land managers an effective and easily obtainable tool to
monitor forest development. Although MODIS is used in this study
because of its large temporal coverage, higher resolution satellite
derived greenness indexes are available for more contemporary periods.
The similarity between NDVI and EVI suggests that these relationships
are likely robust to slight differences in wavelengths between various
satellite-based platforms. It is expected that a wider range of spectral
indexes can be used to extrapolate flux data to the reclamation areas
increasing what tools are available to land managers to isolate and
intervene in regions which may not be performing as expected.
5. Conclusion
Seasonal EC fluxes provide a practical assessment tool for upland
forest systems in the AOSR, particularly as part of the indicators of
resilience to climatic variability and criteria of equivalence. It is
particularly important to align hydrological fluxes with expectations as
the scale of reconstruction in the AOSR requires constructed watersheds,
or ‘hydrological response areas’ to be fully integrated ecosystems, or
‘hydrological units.’ Here we have shown that broadleaf forests return to
natural levels of ET within 5–10 years, but it is uncertain if GEP will ever
reach the same range, or if future increases in GEP will drive higher ET
rates. The conifer sites returned to natural variability of GEP within 10
to 20 years, but ET remains high and is possibly continuing to increase
with age. Due to these high fluxes, both constructed conifer sties
broadleaf sites had low WUE compared to mature and post-harvested
sites. We suggest here that the high rates of ET relative to GEP is
likely due to the soil properties used in construction and will likely
impact downgradient ecosystems. However, the high-water retention in
the soils also likely produced a resilience to dry and/or hot years,
revealing a trade-off when scaling reclamation objectives from
ecosystem to watershed scales. Finally, the scalability to satellite based
observational platforms provides a useful tool to land managers in
determining the water lost to the atmosphere across the entire hydro­
logical unit.
Supplementary
Table ST1: The amount of observations that passed QA/QC in the
M.G. Clark et al.
June, July and August period (i.e. the non-gap filled proportion).
Table ST2: Sonic anemometer and infrared gas analyzer used at each
site.
Table ST3: Site-years which had insufficient data to use a 0.3 u*
threshold for nighttime respiration modeling.
Table ST4: Significantly different means as determined by a Bon­
ferroni post-hoc test. X indicates means are significantly different. Data
is plotted in Figure 10.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by Syncrude Canada Ltd. research grant
(460010687); Canada First Research Excellence Fund, Global Waters
Futures program; Collaborative Research and Development grant
(CRDPJ477235-14) and industry partners Syncrude Canada Ltd and
Canadian Natural Resources Limited; as well as Collaborative Research
and Development grant (418557-2011) and industry partners Suncor
Energy Inc., Esso Imperial Oil Ltd., and Shell Canada Ltd.), Northern
Scientific Training Program and Ducks Unlimited. We would also like to
thank Mike Treberg, Gord Drewit, Adam Green, Ronald Peter Van
Haarlem, Scott Brown, and George Sutherland for all their hard work in
the field and in front of a computer collecting and organizing data.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2022.109127.
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