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The Bunchgrass zone is the warmer of the two biogeoclimatic zones in British Columbia which lack trees. It is most commonly found in deeply incised valleys east of the Coast Mountains and within their rain shadow. Drought, not cold as in the Alpine Tundra (AT), minimizes forest or woodland development.
Biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification (BEC) [1] [2] is an ecological classification framework used in British Columbia to define, describe, and map ecosystem-based units at various scales, from broad, ecologically-based climatic regions down to local ecosystems or sites.
"Level I" divides North America into 15 broad ecoregions. "Level II" subdivides the continent into 52 smaller ecoregions. "Level III" subdivides those regions again into 182 ecoregions. [1] [2] "Level IV" is a further subdivision of Level III ecoregions. Level IV mapping is still underway but is complete across most of the United States.
The CEC was established in 1994 by the member states of Canada, Mexico, and the United States to address regional environmental concerns under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), the environmental side accord to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
British Columbia is the most biodiverse province with 18 ecoregions across 4 biomes. By contrast, Prince Edward Island is the least biodiverse with just one ecoregion - the Gulf of St. Lawrence lowland forests - encompassing the entire province.
The landforms of British Columbia include two major continental landforms, the Interior Plains in the province's northeast, the British Columbia portion of which is part of the Alberta Plateau. The rest of the province is part of the Western Cordillera of North America , often referred to in Canada as the Pacific Cordillera or Canadian Cordillera.
The differences in climate from south to north create several major forest zones, characterized by different species. At the southern limit in northern California is the "coast redwood zone". Beginning at the California/Oregon border, and extending through the north end of Vancouver Island is the "seasonal rain forest zone".
The geology of the northern Selkirks reveals the tremendous tectonic changes that have shaped the terrain of western North America. Like much of British Columbia, the region was first studied by the prolific surveyor and geologist Dr. George Mercer Dawson in 1890. Topographical maps were first produced by A.O. Wheeler in the early 1900s, and in ...