6 Limits and Perspectives

This pilot project was intended to provide an initial assessment of the cumulative effects of marine vessel activities in the study area. As such, this assessment is expected to be a first step in establishing a sustainable, cyclical assessment process. This section therefore presents some of the limitations and perspectives related to the methodology used, the elements making up the profile of the study area, and the results of the assessment. Limitations related to the scope of the study are also presented in section 2.5 of the report, although some are reiterated in that section.

Areas of cultural, heritage and archeological interest

The characterization of First Nations cultural, heritage and archeological areas of interest is accompanied by a series of limitations and considerations for interpreting the results that should be consulted by any reader wishing to properly interpret the results of the cumulative effects assessment for those areas of interest. These limitations are presented in the report’s section 4.3.5.1. Nonetheless, the integration of social and cultural aspects represents a major gap in cumulative effects assessments in general. It was not possible, for example, to assign vulnerability values to the areas of interest identified by the participating First Nations; although difficult, some First Nations representatives indicated to us that an assessment of the vulnerability of the areas could make it possible to identify certain areas that are more susceptible to risk than others from marine vessel activities. This work was beyond both our mandate and expertise; the results presented are therefore essentially limited to the assessment of the cumulative exposure of the areas of interest to marine activity related environmental stressors.

In response to this finding, a related study was initiated with the team of Roxane Lavoie, a professor at the École supérieure d’aménagement du territoire et de développement régional of Université Laval, to focus specifically on the socio-cultural dimensions of the cumulative effects assessment. The project, entitled St. Lawrence Cultures and Nations, aims to understand how Indigenous communities have experienced the intensification of marine vessel activities on the river and how their territorial attachment has been affected. This project is being carried out working closely with representatives of the W8ban-Aki, Huron-Wendat, Innu, Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) and Wolastoqiyik nations. It is funded by Transport Canada and the Quebec Marine Network (Réseau Québec maritime, RQM).

Perspective The results of the cumulative effects assessment presented in this report could be used to inform the Cultures et Nations Saint-Laurent project. Similarly, the Cultures et Nations Saint-Laurentcould provide avenues for interpretation of the results of this study to further explore the potential consequences of the cumulative effects of marine vessel activities in environments of importance to First Nations that are particularly at risk.

Regional assessment

As noted in the introduction to the report, a limitation of this assessment is its sectoral focus on marine vessel activities related to shipping; it cannot be considered an exhaustive cumulative effects assessment addressing the full range of concerns raised by local communities. A more integrative regional cumulative effects assessment would require that the full range of environmental stressors affecting the study area, such as climate change and land-based stressors (e.g. Beauchesne et al., 2020) be considered. The addition of these other stressors could cover the valued component of water quality, which remains a valid concern for local communities.

Perspective: The St. Lawrence River Region Regional Assessment recently authorized by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada in response to a request from the Mohawk Nation of Kahnawà:ke may also have the potential to cover other important stressors. We believe that the assessment conducted in this pilot project should support and inform this regional assessment.

Saguenay River

The Saguenay River is not identified as an area being at risk of cumulative effects from shipping in our cumulative effects assessment. However, this finding must be contextualized. Indeed, there is a general lack of knowledge about this region of the study area, such that it is not possible, in light of our assessment, to determine the real risks posed by marine vessel activities in this region.

Perspective Focus on an ecological, social and cultural characterization of the Saguenay River and redo a cumulative effects assessment.

Habitat characterization

The habitat characterization used for the cumulative effects assessment presented in this pilot project presents two types of habitats: 1) habitats representing unique ecosystems and 2) habitats representing environments of importance to species. The environments of importance to species do not represent an ecosystem, but rather sites that are known to be important to certain species or groups of species. These sites are obviously found within habitats such as wetlands and aquatic grass beds. As such, the identification of these unique, precarious or vulnerable sites could be used to assign a higher vulnerability to the different types of habitats in which they are found. For example, a wetland that is home to species at risk may be more vulnerable to the effects of stressors than a wetland with no known species at risk. However, a comprehensive habitat description could not be obtained for the entire study area. Therefore, habitats of importance to species were selected as discrete habitats rather than as a criterion for adjusting habitat vulnerability.

Perspective: Complete an exhaustive characterization of habitats and define/add criteria to assess their vulnerability and redo a cumulative effects assessment.

Habitat vulnerability

The habitat vulnerability assessment was based on previous studies that used 107 experts to assess vulnerability scores for 19 habitat types to 53 environmental stressors (Kappel et al., 2012; Teck et al., 2010) and this work has been repeated, revised, and adapted many times since (Clarke Murray et al., 2015b, 2015a; e.g. Maxwell et al., 2013; Trew et al., 2019). However, none of these studies is specific to our study area or conducted in freshwater environments.

Perspective: Conduct a review of the scores used to assess habitat vulnerability to environmental stressors with experts in the study area and redo a cumulative effects assessment. For example, it would be relevant to validate whether the vulnerability used for government and research shipping is appropriate in the context of our study area compared to the original Kappel et al. (2012) study.

Intra-annual and seasonal variations

The exposure of valued components to environmental stressors may show intra-annual or seasonal variations. For example, shipping is less intense in winter than in summer; the effects of an accidental spill will not be the same when there is ice cover. In the case of a complete time lag between a valued component and a stressor, the vulnerability assessment can be used to fill this gap; this is what we did for the vulnerability of harp seals to marine mammal watching activities (see section 4.4.3). Vulnerability alone, however, is not sufficient for considering more complex temporal dynamics. The proposed cumulative effects assessment thus assumes that overall, the annual dynamics are consistent. The study of the temporal dynamics of cumulative effects is, however, a topic that is not often mentioned in the literature on cumulative effects assessments similar to the one carried out as part of this project. It would therefore be relevant to expand these assessments to consider temporal exposure in addition to spatial exposure.

Perspective: Characterize seasonal dynamics and develop an approach for considering variations in temporal exposure of valued components to environmental stressors in the cumulative effects assessment. For example, analyses could be separated into seasons and cumulative effects assessment results could be presented by season.

Study grid resolution

The cumulative effects assessment was conducted by integrating the categories of environmental stressors and valued components within a 1 $km^2 grid. This is a fine spatial resolution for a regional assessment covering such a large area. However, the study area is composed of two distinct sectors: the fluvial sector and the marine sector. The marine sector is spatially vast; the fluvial sector, on the other hand, is winding and much narrower. Consequently, the cumulative effects of marine vessel activities are much more concentrated in the fluvial sector than in the marine sector.

Perspective: Divide the fluvial sector with a grid at a resolution finer than 1 \(km^2\), re-do the environmental stressor categories and valued components, and re-do a cumulative effects assessment.

Enhancing the profile of the study area

Data access and availability is a limitation of the previously cited study; data is also a major perspective, as new data can be incorporated into the proposed cumulative effects assessment methodology. Some perspectives on the characterization of environmental stressors and valued components are occasionally discussed within the portrait de la zone d’étude. Over the course of the project, however, some relevant data could not be incorporated for a variety of reasons. We present here some examples of data that we believe should be included in a second phase of this pilot project. This list should not be considered exhaustive, however, as the overall profile of the study area could be improved.

Coastal Resilience Project

A bank characterization exercise similar to the one used for the fluvial sector (Bernier et al., 2020; Bernier et al., 2021) was recently completed by Pascal Bernatchez’s team at the Université du Québec à Rimouski. This large-scale project, entitled Projet Résilience Côtière [tr.: Coastal Resilience Project], presents a characterization of bank integrity, a characterization of coastal habitats and various types of coastal ecosystems, and sites of importance for coastal uses such as recreational activities, sites of high socio-cultural value, sites of ecological interest and recognized heritage sites. When made available, these data could be used to improve characterization of the integrity of banks, habitats and areas of cultural, heritage and archeological interest.

Marine noise

Marine noise is recognized as a shipping-related stressor that should be considered when properly assessing the effects of marine vessel activities on marine mammals. A characterization of marine noise is available through the Ocean soundscape atlas. However, these data are not accessible through the interactive tool and we were unable to obtain them for the assessment. If these data are made available, they should be included in an update to the marine vessel activities cumulative effects assessment.

*** Aquatic grass beds ***

Aquatic grass beds are important environments for several species and the Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks (Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs, MFFP) and the Ministry of the Environment and the Fight Against Climate Change (Ministère de l’Environnement et de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, MELCC), as part of the knowledge acquisition projects for the Centre of Expertise in Maritime Incident Risk Management (Centre d’expertise en gestion des risques d’incidents maritimes, CEGRIM), are working on an update of the characterization of aquatic grass beds in various sectors of the study area. The 2023 update of the assessment included the integration of grass beds biovolumes in certain sectors of the study area (see section ??). Similar surveys could be added in the future to obtain a more exhaustive characterization of grass beds in the study area.

Commercial fisheries in the fluvial sector

Commercial fishing is conducted in the fluvial sector of the study area. However, the available data could not be obtained since the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation du Québec, MAPAQ) and the Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks (Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs, MFFP) are currently working on the production of a cartographic atlas of the fishing areas that should be published in 2022. When available, data from this atlas should be integrated into the cumulative effects assessment to improve the characterization of commercial fishing activities in the study area. In the interim, we used a characterization of commercial fisheries using fyke nets in the fluvial sector from a 2012 assessment of environmental pressures in the St. Lawrence [see section ??; Mingelbier et al. (2012)]. This work was currently the best available assessment of the intensity of commercial fisheries in the fluvial sector. It would however be important to replace tis work with a more refined and up to date assessment of commercial fisheries in future updates of the assessment.

Cumulative Effects Hotspots

Perspective: The cumulative effects assessment identified environments in the study area that are particularly at risk from marine vessel activities. These include the Quebec City and southern Île d’Orléans areas, Lake St. Pierre and the shipping channel between Trois-Rivières and Montreal in the fluvial sector, and the mouth of the Saguenay River in the marine sector. Subsequent assessments could further the cumulative effects assessment by conducting a fine-scale analysis that could complement the regional analysis conducted as part of this pilot project.

Management scenarios

Perspective : In the near future, environmental pressures from both human and natural sources are expected to continue intensifying. Considered collectively, the growing pressures suggest that we will soon be confronted with new complex environmental issues. Our major advantage for testing management scenarios would then be predictive approaches (Dubé, 2003; Hodgson et al., 2019; Jones, 2016). The cumulative effects assessment method used for this pilot project provides this type of predictive approach for assessing the risks associated with the effects of multiple environmental stressors. Predictions of environmental changes could thus be incorporated into the cumulative effects assessment. cumulative effects assessments could explore a range of scenarios for new economic development in the study area, including increased marine traffic, and determine the expected changes in cumulative effects on valued components of interest and provide recommendations for management. Testing such scenarios would allow for an analytical approach to identify proactive management and mitigation measures, which are the next steps in the cumulative effects assessment process outlined in the introduction to this report.

Operationalizing cumulative effects assessments

Perspective: cumulative effects assessments rely on a significant amount of data; this reality is frequently cited as their major limitation (Hodgson et al., 2019; e.g. Jones, 2016). The necessary data or knowledge is sometimes unavailable, inaccessible, or non-existent. Even when data are available, it can be particularly challenging to assemble a database to conduct a large-scale assessment. These growing data needs highlight the need to leverage acquired knowledge, structure it in an interoperable way – i.e. make it easier to connect separate databases – make them available to all, and build infrastructures that maximize our adaptive management capabilities (Poisot et al., 2013; Reichman et al., 2011; Wilkinson et al., 2016; Williams et al., 2020). It was with these realities in mind that we built this pilot project using a transparent and reproducible approach that allowed for easy integration of new data, adjustment of certain portions of the analyses, and regeneration of all analyses, figures, and tables in the report. A second assessment following this pilot project could then build directly on the work already done. Ultimately, it may be possible to easily update an assessment as new knowledge becomes available with tools and infrastructure that allow for efficient replication. This work, which is more data science in nature, should be prioritized and pursued if a second phase of this pilot project is funded. This approach would contribute directly to the final step in the cumulative effects assessment approach outlined in the introduction to this report, i.e. ensuring monitoring and adaptive management.

Interactive exploration of cumulative effects assessments

Perspective: As mentioned during the presentation of the assessment results, the interpretation has been limited to broad findings in order to simplify the key messages of this pilot project. It is thus clear that a number of concerns of local communities, experts and First Nations could not be explored in detail. However, the method allows for the exploration of all possible combinations of environmental stressors and valued components. In order to allow this type of exploration, it would be relevant to develop an interactive web tool that would enable a user to select certain valued components and stressors in order to explore the details of the cumulative effects assessment results. This type of tool, where data science and web programming meet, would allow for greater flexibility in exploring the results, but also make a better user experience possible. We have already built this type of tool for stressors in the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence (Beauchesne et al., 2020): https://david-beauchesne.shinyapps.io/edriversapp/. This tool could be improved to incorporate valued components and the cumulative effects assessment.