Mapping the Remote Green Zone: Free Alberta GIS Data for the ESRD 2014 Remote Forested Sites Classification

By Phaseview | Published May 5, 2026

If you're working on a contaminated site in Alberta's Green Area, the difference between standard Tier 1 petroleum hydrocarbon guidelines and modified Tier 1 guidelines for "Remote Forested Sites" can change your remediation budget by an order of magnitude. The catch: figuring out whether your site qualifies has, for the last decade, meant squinting at a 1:5,000,000 PDF map.

The map lives in the Government of Alberta's Subsoil Petroleum Hydrocarbon Guidelines for Remote Forested Sites in the Green Area (ESRD, September 2014). It defines four classes of land:

Remote Forested Land - Green Area land beyond all setback buffers. Sites here qualify for modified Tier 1 PHC guidelines.
Non-Remote Forested Land - Forested Green Area land within at least one setback buffer.
Non-Forested Land - White Area (settled / agricultural).
National Park - Federal national park land (excluded from the classification).

To our knowledge, the Government of Alberta has never published the resulting four-way classification as GIS data. The source document includes a small-scale PDF map and a written rules table - but no shapefile, no GeoPackage, no web service.

We built one. It's free.

Download Alberta Remote Forested Land GIS Data

The complete polygon re-creation is available now - free with a Phaseview account.

Download Alberta Remote Forested Land (ESRD 2014)

23 polygons covering the four-way classification across the province
245,774 km² of Remote Forested Land (37% of Alberta's land area)
Formats: ESRI Shapefile, OGC GeoPackage, GeoJSON
CRS: EPSG:4326 (WGS 84)
Licensed under the Open Government Licence - Alberta

Read on for the methodology, the rule-vs-map ambiguities we had to resolve, and the verification we're doing with Alberta Environment and Protected Areas. You can also jump straight to the download page or view the data interactively on the map.

The Problem

Alberta's Subsoil Petroleum Hydrocarbon Guidelines for Remote Forested Sites in the Green Area (ESRD, 2014) modifies Tier 1 PHC remediation guidelines for sites that qualify as "Remote". The reasoning is straightforward: in genuinely remote forested settings, the human exposure pathways that drive standard Tier 1 numbers (drinking-water wells, recreational use, garden produce) are absent or sharply reduced, so a less stringent remediation endpoint can still protect human health.

The eligibility test is a four-way land classification. To be Remote Forested Land, a site must be:

More than 20 km from the Fort McMurray Urban Service Area
More than 20 km from the White Area (i.e., the edge of non-forested land)
More than 10 km from any town, settlement, or Indian Reserve
More than 5 km from any main provincial road

The source document publishes one map - a 1:5,000,000 small-scale PDF - with the four classes coloured in. For any specific site, a consultant has to either eyeball the PDF or rebuild the buffer logic themselves. We've been hearing from Alberta consultants for months that they wished the GIS just existed.

What We Built

We computed the four-way classification in PostGIS by applying the source-document setback rules to current Government of Alberta source layers, then exported to Shapefile, GeoPackage, and GeoJSON. The pipeline lives in our codebase and re-runs on demand.

1. Inputs

Government of Alberta Green Area / White Area boundaries
Government of Alberta provincial roads (numbered highways 1-216 + 500-986)
A manually-curated 61-point list of settlements (more on this below)
Federal national park boundaries (with manual edits to match the source map)

2. Algorithm

Starting from the Green Area, we subtract National Parks, then subtract the union of all four exclusion buffers. What remains is Remote Forested Land. The intersection of the forested area with the buffer union becomes Non-Remote Forested Land. White Area becomes Non-Forested Land.

3. Calibration to the source map

The source document includes both written rules and a small-scale map, and they disagree in two places. Where the map and the literal rule text disagree, we follow the map.

Provincial roads. The rule text says "within 5 km of any provincial road", which can be read as a 10 km corridor centred on the road. The source map applies a 5 km TOTAL corridor (2.5 km on each side of the centreline). We follow the map. (Earlier versions of our re-creation followed the rule text literally and overshot.)

Settlements and reserves. The rule text refers generically to "towns, settlements, and Indian Reserves". The source map only buffers a specific selection of communities - not every entry in the provincial municipal-areas layer or every Indian Reserve. We curated a 61-point list reflecting what's actually drawn on the source map. Sixty get a 10 km buffer; Fort McMurray gets a 20 km buffer.

Three small "Non-Forested Land" polygons. Near Sandy Lake, Desmarais, and Fort Chipewyan, the underlying provincial Green/White layer marks a few small areas as White Area, but the source map shows them as forested. We reclassify them at the input level (they become Green Area before buffers are computed), so they don't pull a 20 km Non-Remote ring around them.

4. Verification (in flight)

We've emailed Alberta Environment and Protected Areas (Lands Policy and Program Branch) and the Alberta Energy Regulator asking for an authoritative interpretation of the rule-vs-map ambiguities. When we hear back, we'll publish an updated dataset reflecting their position.

Why We're Giving It Away

The dataset is published under the Open Government Licence - Alberta, the same licence that covers the source PDF map. The licence permits copying, modification, and redistribution for any lawful purpose, including commercial use.

Phaseview is building a comprehensive platform for environmental data in Alberta - the interactive map includes 30+ data layers, spatial analysis tools, and access to over 35,000 environmental reports. The Remote Forested Land dataset is one piece of that puzzle, and it's free to download with no restrictions.

Important Caveats

A few things to keep in mind before using the data:

This is a Phaseview re-creation, not Government of Alberta GIS. We applied the rules from the source document to current source layers; we did not receive an official GIS file from anyone. Always verify against the source document for regulatory decisions.
Do not use as the sole basis for remediation decisions. The authoritative classification for any specific site must be determined by an appropriately qualified person against the source rules and the current source layers.
Source-layer vintage matters. Towns grow, roads get paved, reserve boundaries are amended. A re-creation built from current source layers will differ from a 2014 cartographic snapshot.
Two known interpretive choices (road buffer width; settlement curation) are documented above. We'll update if regulators clarify.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ESRD 2014 Remote Forested Sites classification?

In 2014 Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD, now Alberta Environment and Protected Areas) issued the Subsoil Petroleum Hydrocarbon Guidelines for Remote Forested Sites in the Green Area. The document defines a four-way land classification (Remote Forested Land, Non-Remote Forested Land, Non-Forested Land, National Park) that determines whether a contaminated site qualifies for modified Tier 1 PHC remediation guidelines. Sites that qualify as Remote Forested Land are eligible for less stringent subsurface PHC numbers, recognising lower exposure risk in remote settings.

Did the Government of Alberta release this as GIS data?

Not to our knowledge. The source document includes a small-scale PDF map and a written rules table, but no GIS shapefile, GeoPackage, or web service has been published.

Where can I download the Alberta Remote Forested Land GIS dataset?

The Alberta Remote Forested Land dataset is available on Phaseview as a free download with a free account. The Government of Alberta publishes the source document but has not released official GIS data.

What formats are included?

The download package contains ESRI Shapefile (.shp), OGC GeoPackage (.gpkg), and GeoJSON, plus README and LICENSE documentation. CRS is EPSG:4326 (WGS 84).

Can I use this data for regulatory or remediation compliance?

Not on its own. The dataset is a derived re-creation. The authoritative classification for any specific site must be determined by an appropriately qualified person against the rules in the source document and the current source data. This dataset is intended as a planning aid and a starting point.

Why does the re-creation differ from the source map in some places?

Three reasons. (1) The source PDF map is small-scale (1:5,000,000) and rasterised, so its boundaries are coarse. (2) Town footprints, road networks, and reserve boundaries change over time, so a re-creation from current source layers will differ from a 2014 cartographic snapshot. (3) The source rule text and source map disagree in two specific places (road buffer width, settlement selection); we follow the map and document the choice.

Who uses Alberta Remote Forested Sites classification data?

Environmental consultants, oilfield operators, remediation contractors, and AER reclamation reviewers all use this classification to determine whether a contaminated site is eligible for modified Tier 1 PHC remediation guidelines.

Get the Data

Download the complete Alberta Remote Forested Land GIS dataset and start using it in your workflow:

Download Alberta Remote Forested Land (ESRD 2014)

Free account required. No cost. No restrictions on use.

You can also explore the data interactively on the Phaseview map - toggle on the "Green/White Zones" layer under Administrative Boundaries to see the full classification.

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Alberta. Source: Government of Alberta - Environment and Protected Areas. Polygon re-creation produced by Phaseview from the rules in the ESRD 2014 source document.