The State of the Environment project ran from January 2013 to May 2014 and aimed to improve the quality and accessibility of environmental research in the Columbia Basin Boundary region through four objectives:

1. explore the landscape of environmental research and planning in the region,

2. expand existing State of the Basin environmental indicators,

3. develop (in partnership with the Selkirk Geospatial Research Centre) a web-based geospatial portal to provide easy access to information that supports informed decision making and collaboration, and

4. build the research capacity of environmental stakeholders in order to improve data collection, support use of the web-based portal (the “Digital Basin”), and link research to environmental decision making.

Key outcomes from the project included expansion of the suite of environmental indicators reported under the State of the Basin initiative, development of the Digital Basin (including the addition of 28 environmental data layers) and a series of presentations and workshops aimed at building the capacity of regional environmental stakeholders to access and use research. The State of the Environment research brief provides more detail on the project’s rationale and results.

The State of the Environment project received financial support from the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia.