With a rapidly expanding urban footprint and limited regulatory levers to ensure sustainable growth, the City of St. Albert, AB is looking to natural asset management to better protect their natural areas and adapt to climate change.
Just northwest of Edmonton, the City of St. Albert is a place that has it all—a strong urban centre of over 74,000 citizens, the city boasts easy access to nature, including the Sturgeon River and nearby Big Lake, a globally recognized Important Bird Area and a popular destination for bird watching, hiking, and cross-country skiing. With all these amenities, it’s no surprise that St. Albert is experiencing an influx of people looking to settle in the city.
NAI sat down with Melissa Logan, Environmental Coordinator at the municipality, to learn about their efforts to manage critical natural areas in the face of development.
“We’re seeing a growth rate of 2% per year, so pretty big,” says Logan. The rapid urban expansion matches the pace seen across the province. In addition to population and housing growth, the City has also seen record business and commercial growth in recent years. Logan notes that the speed of development comes with a cost.
“We just recently annexed some land to the northwest of the city and we’re also growing to the northeast, which is resulting in a rapid loss of the few wetlands we have left, as well as a lot of natural areas.”
Melissa Logan, Environmental Coordinator at the City of St. Albert, AB
Alberta has lost an estimated 60-70% of its wetlands in settled areas. Since wetlands provide valuable benefits like absorbing excess stormwater, filtering agricultural runoff, and retaining water on the landscape during periods of drought, this means that communities are losing vital buffers between themselves and the impacts of climate change. St. Albert itself has been in a severe drought, the effects of which are evident in the Sturgeon River. Unlike other types of rivers that are fed by glaciers, the Sturgeon River is entirely dependent on precipitation—little rain means water levels become precariously low, threatening fish populations and the health of this regional amenity.
The issue is that, when it comes to protecting natural features, the City is limited by the Province’s Municipal Government Act as to what areas they can take for environmental reserve. So, St. Albert is developing their own mechanisms to be able to proactively protect areas not covered by the Act, which led them to natural asset management (NAM).
Building a Roadmap for Natural Asset Management
St. Albert’s first foray in understanding their landscape and sensitivities of their ecosystem features was the 2015 Natural Areas Assessment and management plan. They were turned on to NAM in 2023 when they joined NAI’s Natural Asset Management Roadmap Program.
“I actually knew somebody at the Town of Gibsons,” Logan recalls, “she got in touch and said ‘hey, you should do this’, and that’s how we found out about the roadmaps.”
The North Saskatchewan River Watershed Alliance (NSWA) funded St. Albert’s participation in the Roadmap Program. NSWA is the region’s Watershed Planning and Advisory Council (WPAC); WPACS are independent stewardship ground for each of the major river basins in Alberta.
An initiative to help local governments identify opportunities, data gaps, and develop specific actions to advance NAM in their context, the Roadmap Program helped put St. Albert on a sound path towards managing natural assets.
“It’s a natural fit into our existing asset management program and framework,” says Logan on the decision to pursue NAM. It’s also timely—their asset management department is bringing in new software and working to improve asset management in the city, providing an opportunity to start integrating natural asset considerations into their process.
Logan acknowledges that capacity is always a challenge, especially when trying to introduce another layer into decision making; she and the rest of the environment branch is doing their part to support their asset management team in adopting NAM.
Priority 1: Developing a new natural asset inventory
Armed with their roadmap, Logan’s next goal is to develop a detailed natural asset inventory that captures land use changes and annexes since their 2015 assessment and bring all their GIS data into one system. St. Albert has submitted a grant proposal to fund the inventory project and is hoping for approval later this year.
The inventory will be aligned with the national standard WS218, making it easier for the City to keep it updated and relevant, especially if other municipalities follow the same guidelines. Ultimately, the goal of the inventory is to provide data on the services provided by (and risks to) St. Albert’s natural assets so that they have the information necessary to fill the policy gaps which leave ecosystems vulnerable to development.
“My hope is that we’ll have a really solid mapping layer that the planning, capital projects, asset management, and environment departments can use to make decisions to deal with the pace of development here. We have to have that justification,” Logan explains.
In terms of priority services to explore, flood and drought resilience are top-of-mind, as is heat island effect reduction, recreation, wildlife movement, and water management. The inventory project will also include valuations for ecosystem services to help with decision-making. For example, St. Albert currently has a valuation process for their ornamental trees so that, if any trees are removed during development, they are compensated for. Logan wants to explore a similar mechanism for other trees and natural areas based on their ecological value.
Priority 2: Find opportunities to improve natural area protections and hybrid infrastructure
The inventory is just one element of the larger effort to improve asset management and begin integrating NAM. Asset management has a lot of moving parts, and St. Albert staff are looking to better align several strategies with NAM that are worth mentioning, including:
- Updating their engineering standards to include more low-impact development (LID) requirements; currently, LID features are optional and, as a result, not often pursued by developers.
- Reviewing their standards for stormwater management facilities to encourage more naturalized components and potentially recreating the functions of some of the lost wetlands.
- Cataloging all the City’s trees as a part of their Urban Forest Management Plan; this data will be included in the GIS database and linked to the natural asset inventory.
- Developing a policy and exploring funding sources for the Conservation Reserve Program, which would allow the City to purchase land for conservation purposes.
Your Neighbours = Your Partners in NAM
According to Logan, their biggest success so far has been collaborating at the watershed scale. In partnership with the NSWA, the Sturgeon River Watershed Alliance includes every municipality within the Sturgeon subwatershed. The group is exploring how they can improve the river together through standardized policies and land use decisions.
“There is definitely a desire across the region to have this work be done, like the unification of land use policies and working together to protect those significant features that of course don’t follow municipal boundaries,” says Logan.
She notes that many surrounding municipalities are starting to undertake NAM as best they can, but that smaller towns have a lot on their plate. “They’re just stretched to the max,” she explains, “so it’s on the shoulders of larger municipalities like ourselves to do this natural asset work so that we can share our experience with smaller local governments and help guide them where we can.”
Logan touches on two important aspects of the growing field of NAM:
- That shared assets like nature require shared responsibility through coordinated efforts such as the Sturgeon River Watershed Alliance.
- Local governments need to be able to share best practices and lessons with other organizations to help close the knowledge and capacity gaps.
With the growing pace of development in Alberta and the lack of legislation to protect natural features, Logan thinks NAM is a valuable way for local governments preserve their natural infrastructure.
Her tip for communities looking to get started in NAM: rely on your neighbours!
“My advice would definitely be to partner with your regional watershed group, NAI, or other firms or non-profits doing this kind of work—see what opportunities there are for partnerships that can take on some of the load so you’re not doing it all yourself.”
Melissa Logan
Staff at St. Albert take part in various regional groups, and the opportunities to share ideas and challenges has been hugely beneficial. Logan also encourages seeking grants for natural infrastructure and green solutions through funders like FCM’s Green Municipal Fund.
For those in the Prairies, IISD’s Natural Infrastructure for Water Solutions (NIWS) program offers a number of resources and expertise to advance natural infrastructure projects across Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.
All images courtesy of the City of St. Albert.
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Looking to kickstart NAM in your region? Get your team on track with the Natural Asset Management Roadmap Program! Learn more and apply
