The Oil Sands Research and Information Network (OSRIN) was a university-based, independent organization that compiled, interpreted and analysed available knowledge about managing the environmental impacts to landscapes and water affected by oil sands mining. The resources developed by OSRIN are now being housed within the ACRRE website to continue their legacy of getting knowledge into the hands of those who can use it in order to drive breakthrough improvements in environmental management regulations and practices.
OSRIN projects focused on six program areas:
- Tailings Reclamation, which identified challenges that must be addressed in accelerating the reclamation of tailings ponds and disposal areas and catalyzed necessary R&D efforts to resolve them.
- Regional Landscape Reclamation, which focused on providing the knowledge necessary to support development of regional reclamation targets as well as site- and mine-level objectives.
- Monitoring Ecosystem Impacts, which focused on components of a comprehensive, robust system in Alberta to monitor the effects of oil sands mining operations on ecosystem health – a system that is scientifically sound and has the confidence of the general public.
- Increasing Awareness, which increased awareness of OSRIN and oil sands issues through an active website presence, sponsoring oil sands related conferences, digitizing historical information and publication of OSRIN research results.
- Social, Economic and Regulatory, which identified social, economic and regulatory issues that may affect environmental management of the oil sands reclamation and evaluated the effectiveness of environmental management in addressing social, economic and regulatory issues.
- Strategic Design, which focused on the development and refinement of OSRIN’s strategic intent and program delivery.
Reports of completed work are available under the OSRIN Publications link.
Please see the final OSRIN Synthesis Document summarizing the insights and applications of the breadth of OSRIN’s projects over the five year term.
As part of its Increasing Awareness efforts OSRIN developed a series of information pieces on a variety of oil sands-related topics. These Did You Know pieces were compiled into a single document available here, OSRIN Did You Know Series: The Collected Works.