Spring 2026 Recap

This spring has been a busy and exciting season for the Aspen Project as our team prepared for another year of field research while continuing to share findings from previous seasons. From presenting at conferences and engaging with the public to maintaining field infrastructure and advancing data analysis, the past few months have marked another productive chapter in our effort to understand how resource access roads influence boreal peatlands.

Sharing Our Research

Our team had a strong presence at the 2026 Canadian Geophysical Union (CGU) Annual Scientific Meeting, where members presented research spanning the breadth of the Aspen Project.

Dr. Scott Ketcheson (principal investigator, Athabasca University) provided an overview of the project and its multidisciplinary approach to understanding the impacts of resource access roads on boreal peatlands. Oral presentations also highlighted new findings on peatland carbon cycling (Carissa MacKenzie, PhD student, University of Waterloo), hydrology at the Main Access Road study site (Joseph Tuffner, MSc Student, University of Calgary), and dust deposition associated with road infrastructure (Dr. Murdoch McKinnon, postdoctoral researcher, University of Calgary). Saeed Heravi (MSc student, University of Calgary) presented a poster examining evapotranspiration at the Main Access Road using measurements from our eddy covariance network.

The conference also marked a significant achievement for our team, as principal investigator Dr. Maria Strack (University of Waterloo) received the Canadian Geophysical Union Mid-Career Scientist Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions to peatland science and ecohydrology. Congratulations, Maria, on this well-deserved honour!

Field Season in Full Swing

While conference season showcased results from previous years, the arrival of spring signaled the beginning of another busy field season across our study sites in the Alberta Oil Sands Region.

This year, the project welcomed several new collaborators. Antonia Hofmann, a visiting MSc student from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU), has begun investigating the hydrology and soil properties of reclaimed peat stockpiles. Zhikang Zhu, a research assistant from the University of Waterloo, is contributing new measurements of peatland carbon cycling, while Julie Miltgen, another visiting MSc student from LMU, is expanding our remote sensing and geospatial analyses.

Long-term monitoring also continues across the project. At the Main Access Road study site, Saeed, together with research assistants Junzhe Li and Mackenzie Dopf, is maintaining groundwater monitoring wells, lysimeters, and meteorological stations equipped with eddy covariance and sap flow instrumentation to improve our understanding of evapotranspiration. At our synoptic study sites, Murdoch is leading an expanded ecohydrology program that includes a new study design and additional monitoring locations. Meanwhile, Jiaao Guo, a PhD student at the University of Calgary, and research assistant Anil Basnet continue to collect high-resolution drone imagery to support landscape-scale analyses of vegetation and infrastructure impacts.

Together, these complementary research efforts are helping us better understand how roads influence peatland hydrology, vegetation, carbon cycling, and ecosystem function across multiple spatial scales.

Looking Ahead

With fieldwork now well underway, we're looking forward to another productive summer of data collection and collaboration. Each season strengthens the long-term record that underpins the Aspen Project, bringing us closer to understanding how boreal peatlands respond to resource development and how these valuable ecosystems can be managed more sustainably.

Stay tuned for more updates from the field in the months ahead!