This Technical Report provides an overview of the hierarchical Before-After Dose-Response (BADR) study design that was developed to provide an integrated, efficient framework for the Terrestrial Biological Monitoring (TBM) component of the OSM Program. BADR is a monitoring design that measures changes in select indicator groups and attributes those changes to oil sands activities using two monitoring approaches: (1) Before-After: Monitoring at different phases of oil sands development (currently developed, not developed, and reference); and (2) Dose-Response: Monitoring along a gradient of current oil sands disturbance (high to low). The combination of these two approaches forms the BADR design. By repeatedly surveying monitoring locations within this design over time, the TBM program can gain information on how biological systems respond to known stressor gradients in the oil sands region.
