Access to land has become a limiting factor for developments in Alberta. This has led the
Government of Alberta to introduce the Land-use Framework (Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, 2008) as a way to improve land-use decision making. Cumulative effects management and the establishment of information and knowledge systems are key components of the framework. With the use of cooperative information systems to combine ecological databases, individual environmental site assessments can be used to build local and regional environmental assessments. This allows for the identification of broader issues that can be missed in individual assessments. As well, local and regional environmental assessments can be developed and reviewed in a timely and effective manner, and government, resource industries, and other stakeholders can be provided with more comprehensive information for decision- making.