Natural Environment

YKF has the privilege of being situated on land with a robust natural environment including 85 hectares of wetlands, woodlands, rivers and adjacent to the Grand River. This presents both an opportunity and challenge to steward the land in a responsible manner, to ensure a thriving ecosystem while operating an airport.

We recognize the importance of understanding the natural environment and commit to completing detailed environmental impact assessment studies for future development projects.

The following image illustrates the natural environment around the Airport.

YKF has developed plans for future development through the Airport Growth Plan. Although the Region strives to minimize impacts to the natural environment and has placed great importance on the natural environment when evaluating plans, some impacts are unavoidable. As a result, YKF has initiated field investigations and developed a Natural Heritage Management Plan to mitigate impacts and enhance ecological conditions as described below.  

Field Investigations

Field investigations were initiated in 2014, and preliminary findings were summarized in the 2017 Airport Master Plan. These investigations included an assessment of the regulated areas identified in GRCA mapping specifically delineating wetlands and completion of hydraulic modeling to confirm floodplain limits.

Extensive field investigations continued between 2019 and 2022 within the Airport and surrounding lands for the Runway 14-32 Extension project. These studies included comprehensive inventories of flora and fauna, refinement of wetland boundaries in the field with the GRCA, and targeted surveys for species at risk. The key findings of the field investigations are summarized in the Airport Growth Plan. Through these various studies, the need for impact mitigation, long-term monitoring, restoration, and natural heritage feature management within the Airport lands was identified.

Natural Heritage Management Plan

YKF has developed a Natural Heritage Management Plan (NHMP) to mitigate impacts from future airport development projects as identified in the Airport Growth Plan. The NHMP characterises the natural environment and establishes short and long-term objectives and mitigation strategies. The purpose of the NHMP is to conserve and improve the ecological conditions of the Airport to the greatest extent possible, while accommodating future development projects and ongoing airport operations and aircraft safety.

The NHMP provides the following objectives and management prescriptions:

• Managing trees near runways to maintain safety;
• Controlling invasive species;
• Creating or improving wildlife habitat;
• Relocating rare plant species; and,
• Ecological monitoring program to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of mitigation strategies, including vegetation communities, habitat, wildlife, wetland hydrology and aquatic features.

The NHMP is a living document which will be updated to include additional considerations as the Airport Growth Plan is implemented. The NHMP also includes adaptive management, where strategies will be adjusted as additional ecological monitoring work is completed.

Future Airport development projects will still require site-specific assessments and studies, however the NHMP establishes the guiding principles and objectives for these assessments. The Airport commits to no net loss of habitat due to development.