The Lower Mainland Ecoregion is the biogeoclimatic region that surrounds Vancouver, British Columbia, comprising the eastern edge of the Georgia Depression [1] and extending from Powell River, British Columbia on the Sunshine Coast to Hope at the eastern end of the Fraser Valley. It thus corresponds, for the most part, with the popular usage of the term "Lower Mainland." The Lower Mainland Ecoregion is a part of the Pacific Maritime Ecozone. [2]
The ecoregion is bounded by the Coast and Cascade Mountains and traversed by the Fraser River. It has a unique climate, flora and fauna, geology and land use. The following description is adapted from Environment Canada's Ecological Framework of Canada. [3]
The ecoregion extends west from the Skagit Range of the Cascade Mountains at Chilliwack to the Fraser river delta at Richmond and north to include a portion of the Georgia Lowland along the Sunshine Coast. [3]
The mean annual temperature in the Lower Mainland is 9 °C with a summer mean of 15 °C and a winter mean of 3.5 °C. Annual precipitation ranges from an annual mean of 850 mm in the west end to 2000 mm in the eastern end of the Fraser Valley and at higher elevations. Maximum precipitation occurs as rain in winter. Less than ten percent falls as snow at sea level but the amount of snowfall increases significantly with elevation. [3]
Forests of Coast Douglas-fir, with an understory of salal, Oregon-grape and moss, are typical of the mature native vegetation found throughout the ecoregion. Mixed stands of Coast Douglas-fir and Western Hemlock are common, with some dogwood and arbutus occurring on drier sites. Red alder is a common pioneer species where sites have been disturbed. Wet sites support Coast Douglas-fir, Western Hemlock, and Western Redcedar. Wildlife includes black-tailed deer, coyote, raccoon, shorebirds, and waterfowl. [3]
The ecoregion is underlain by unconsolidated glaciofluvial deposits, silty alluvium, silty and clayey marine sediments and glacial till. Bedrock outcrops of Mesozoic and Palaeozoic origin form rolling hills up to about 310 metres above sea level. The Fraser River dominates this lowland. Gleysols, Mesisols, and Humisols are the dominant wetland soils in the region, while Eutric and Dystric Brunisols and some Podzols have developed on sandy to loamy outwash and glacial till in the uplands. [3]
The region includes a mix of urban settlement and agricultural land, comprising both the largest population centre and some of the most fertile farmland in British Columbia. Intensive agriculture occurs on the rich bottomland of the Fraser Valley where it competes with urban development. Forestry takes place on the slopes of the mountains. Coastal salt marshes provide important wildlife habitat in the Fraser delta and Boundary Bay. There are about 870 square kilometres of productive farmland in the ecoregion. [3]
There is rapid urban and suburban growth in the Vancouver area and communities in the Fraser Valley and Sunshine Coast. The main population centre in this ecoregion is Greater Vancouver. Other centres include North Vancouver (city and district), Chilliwack, Abbotsford, and Mission. [3]
Agricultural land area remained relatively stable between 1971 and 2006, declining by less than 3%. While the number of cattle declined by 12% during this period, poultry inventories increased significantly, rising by 129%. The region accounted for 13% of Canada's poultry production in 2006. [4] The ecoregion's population increased 102% between 1971 and 2006 as compared to Canada's population growth of 47%. With 473 persons per square kilometre in 2006, the ecoregion was Canada's most densely populated. The population of the ecoregion in 2006 was approximately 2.4 million people, which represents 7.6% of Canada's population. [4]
The Lower Mainland is a geographic and cultural region of the mainland coast of British Columbia that generally comprises the regional districts of Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. Home to approximately 3.05 million people as of the 2021 Canadian census, the Lower Mainland contains sixteen of the province's 30 most populous municipalities and approximately 60% of the province's total population.
The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for 1,375 kilometres (854 mi), into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual discharge at its mouth is 112 cubic kilometres (27 cu mi) or 3,550 cubic metres per second (125,000 cu ft/s), and each year it discharges about 20 million tons of sediment into the ocean.
The Fraser Valley is a geographical region in southwestern British Columbia, Canada and northwestern Washington State. It starts just west of Hope in a narrow valley encompassing the Fraser River and ends at the Pacific Ocean stretching from the North Shore Mountains, opposite the city of Vancouver BC, to just south of Bellingham, Washington.
Temperate rainforests are rainforests with coniferous or broadleaf forests that occur in the temperate zone and receive heavy rain.
Greater Vancouver, also known as Metro Vancouver, is the metropolitan area with its major urban centre being the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The term "Greater Vancouver" describes an area that is roughly coterminous with the region governed by the Metro Vancouver Regional District (MVRD), though it predates the 1966 creation of the regional district. It is often used to include areas beyond the boundaries of the regional district but does not generally include wilderness and agricultural areas that are included within the MVRD.
British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada, bordered by the Pacific Ocean. With an area of 944,735 km2 (364,764 sq mi) it is Canada's third-largest province. The province is almost four times the size of the United Kingdom and larger than every United States state except Alaska. It is bounded on the northwest by the U.S. state of Alaska, directly north by Yukon and the Northwest Territories, on the east by Alberta, and on the south by the U.S. states of Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Formerly part of the British Empire, the southern border of British Columbia was established by the 1846 Oregon Treaty. The province is dominated by mountain ranges, among them the Canadian Rockies but dominantly the Coast Mountains, Cassiar Mountains, and the Columbia Mountains. Most of the population is concentrated on the Pacific coast, notably in the area of Vancouver, located on the southwestern tip of the mainland, which is known as the Lower Mainland. It is the most mountainous province of Canada.
The British Columbia Coast, popularly referred to as the BC Coast or simply the Coast, is a geographic region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. As the entire western continental coastline of Canada along the Pacific Ocean is in the province, it is synonymous with being the West Coast of Canada.
British Columbia mainland coastal forests is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion the Pacific coast of North America, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) categorization system.
Yarrow is a small community located 90 kilometres east of Vancouver within the City of Chilliwack in British Columbia, Canada. It is in the Fraser Valley at the foot of Vedder Mountain. The village was first settled by Mennonites in the late 1920s, following the draining of Sumas Lake and the reclamation of the former lake bed for agriculture.
The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands, or simply St. Lawrence Lowlands, is a physiographic region of Eastern Canada that comprises a section of southern Ontario bounded on the north by the Canadian Shield and by three of the Great Lakes — Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario — and extends along the St. Lawrence River to the Strait of Belle Isle and the Atlantic Ocean. The lowlands comprise three sub-regions that were created by intrusions from adjacent physiographic regions — the West Lowland, Central Lowland and East Lowland. The West Lowland includes the Niagara Escarpment, extending from the Niagara River to the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island. The Central Lowland stretches between the Ottawa River and the St. Lawrence River. The East Lowland includes Anticosti Island, Îles de Mingan, and extends to the Strait of Belle Isle.
The Montane Cordillera Ecozone, as defined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), is an ecozone in south-central British Columbia and southwestern Alberta, Canada. A rugged and mountainous ecozone spanning 473,000 square kilometres, it still contains "two of the few significant agricultural areas of the province", the Creston Valley and the Okanagan Valley. Primarily a mountainous region, it consists of rugged ecosystems such as alpine tundra, dry sagebrush and dense conifer forests. The interior plains are encircled by a ring of mountains. The area has a mild climate throughout the year, with typically dry summers and wet winters.
The Prairies Ecozone is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone which spans the southern areas of the Prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. It is a productive agricultural area, and is commonly referred to as "Canada's breadbasket". Farmland covers about 94% of the land, and is the dominant domestic economic activity of the zone, as well as an important factor in Canadian foreign trade. Natural gas and oil are abundant in the area. The corresponding Level II ecoregion of the US Environmental Protection Agency is the Great Plains Ecoregion.
The Pacific Maritime Ecozone, as defined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone, spanning a strip approximately 200 kilometres wide along the British Columbia Coast, then narrowing along the border with Alaska. It also includes all marine islands of British Columbia and a small portion of the southwestern corner of the Yukon. Fourteen ecoregions comprise the Ecozone, ranging from the Mount Logan Ecoregion in the north to the Cascade Ecoregion and Lower Mainland Ecoregion in the south.
The Ecology of the North Cascades is heavily influenced by the high elevation and rain shadow effects of the mountain range. The North Cascades is a section of the Cascade Range from the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River in Washington, United States, to the confluence of the Thompson and Fraser Rivers in British Columbia, Canada, where the range is officially called the Cascade Mountains but is usually referred to as the Canadian Cascades. The North Cascades Ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion in the Commission for Environmental Cooperation's classification system.
The Central Pacific coastal forests is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion located in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) categorization system.
The North Central Rockies forests is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion of Canada and the United States. This region overlaps in large part with the North American inland temperate rainforest and gets more rain on average than the South Central Rockies forests and is notable for containing the only inland populations of many species from the Pacific coast.
The Fraser Lowland is a landform and physiographic region in the Pacific Northwest of North America, shared between the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington. The region includes much of the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, and the coastal plains of Washington's Whatcom County. As a physiographic region, the Fraser Lowland is part of the Georgia Depression, which in turn is part of the Coastal Trough.
Chilliwack is a city made up of several amalgamated villages and communities. The urban core has a decidedly north–south axis bisected by the Trans-Canada Highway. The city is bounded in north by the Fraser River, in the east by the Eastern Hillsides, in the south by the Canada-U.S. border, and in the west by the Vedder Canal.
Puget lowland forests is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion the Pacific coast of North America, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) categorization system.
Pacific Coastal Mountain icefields and tundra is a tundra ecoregion in Alaska, British Columbia, and Yukon, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) categorization system.