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Ecosystem Classification
of the Northwest Territories
TAIGA PLAINS
 Northern ecosystems, with their vast forests,
numerous wetlands, bogs, lakes and rivers, play an important role in
producing oxygen and clean water, and enhancing our environment. Different
combinations of climate, soils and terrain create a variety of landscapes
across the Northwest Territories. These landscapes can be grouped into
ecological regions (ecoregions) at a variety of scales. The NWT has adopted
the North American continental system to revise its ecoregions. The system
includes several levels of ecoregions, ranging from huge global biomes such
as tundra and taiga to much smaller and more specific areas that might cover
only a few square kilometres.
Under this system the Northwest Territories has three Level I ecoregions:
Arctic, Tundra, and Taiga. These can be further divided into eight Level II
ecoregions and 17 Level III ecoregions. This classification system will be
useful for environmental assessment, cumulative effects management,
biodiversity monitoring and reporting, forest resource analysis and
planning, wildlife habitat evaluation and conservation, and protected area
identification.
 The first NWT Level II ecoregion to be revised and mapped is the
Taiga
Plains and its four Level III ecoregions
(Warning large file: PDF = 131,000 KB)
An educational poster of the
Taiga Plains is
here (PDF = 2095 KB)
Classification maps can be accessed/generated from the
GNWT Spatial Data Warehouse Geospatial Portal.
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