In Alberta, public roadside ditches and undeveloped rights-of-way are important public lands that provide wildlife habitat and deliver valuable ecosystem services. Loss of these areas to trespass farming, in which cultivation extends past the farm field boundary and into right-of-ways and ditches, is extensive in southern Alberta. Pheasants Forever launched Save the Edges to raise awareness about the importance of leaving public roadside ditches and rights-of-way intact. The campaign is focused on southern Alberta municipalities including 13 municipalities that cover nearly 67,000 square kilometres.
Pheasants Forever requires baseline information about the extent of trespass farming within this area to be able to evaluate our efforts with Save the Edges. Options for mapping and quantifying the extent of trespass farming include field surveys, manual interpretation of air photos, and classification of land cover based on remote sensing techniques. The first two of these options are very labour and time intensive, especially for large areas. Conversely, remote sensing provides a semi-automated and efficient way to map large areas; however, because this approach uses medium-resolution imagery, it comes with trade-offs with regards to the level of detail that can be mapped.
We are happy to announce a pilot project is to test whether remote sensing methods can be used to differentiate between public right-of-ways and ditches that have been impacted by annual farming versus areas with perennial cover.
We need this information to quantify the extent of trespass farming. The pilot project will investigate the best methods for identifying land cover and land use associated with trespass farming and determining the best approach for quantifying the extent of trespass farming. The pilot will also evaluate of the accuracy of the estimates.
The intent of this study is to test different remote sensing methods for identifying and quantifying trespass farming. We are hopeful to report on the findings later in 2025.