2008 Events
AIRD Workshop
Research and Practitioner Partnerships for Action on Climate Change:
Developing Guidance for Communities
March 6 – 7, 2008
Best Western Richmond Inn, Richmond, BC, Canada
Workshop presentation to download
Climate change impacts and our development decisions
John Robinson (Institute for Resources Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia)
Climate change impacts in Canada
Linda Mortsch (Adaptation and Impacts Research Division, Environment Canada) (MortschL.ppt)
Designing complex adaptation and mitigation responses to climate change
Ian Burton and Livia Bizikova (Adaptation and Impacts Research Division, Environment Canada)
Assessing impacts of changing climate in BC
Ian J. Walker (University of Victoria)
Guideline for communities
Lara Whitely Binder (University of Washington)
Community participation mitigating hazards
Murray Journeay and Sonia Talwar (Natural Resources Canada)
Priorities for adaptation in BC
Cathy LeBlanc
Jenny Fraser (BC Ministry of Environment)
Guidelines for synergies between adaptation and mitigation from the UK
Robert Shaw (Faber Maunsell)
Visualizing climate change at the local level
Stephen Sheppard (Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia)
Adding responses to climate change to the planning process
John Manson (Engineers Canada; the City of Langford B.C)
Alliance for Resilient Cities (ARC) – challenges in promoting actions
Michael Canzi (Clean Air Partnership)
This workshop was supported by Environment Canada and with a research grant from the Government of Canada's Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Program.
Previous Events
2007 Poster Contest
IMPACT! Climate Change Research Poster Contest
AIRD and IRES are pleased to co-host a student research poster competition with awards totaling $2000 ($1500 first prize and $500 second prize) for the best poster presentation(s) addressing any of the following topics:
• Impacts of, and adaptation to, climate change, climate variability and extreme events
• Integrated assessment of climate change mitigation, impacts and adaptation on a regional basis
• Linkages and synergies among climate change adaptation, mitigation and sustainable development
WHO CAN ENTER?
Students in all disciplines at the 4th year undergraduate, Masters and PhD levels who are registered (full- or part-time) at British Columbia post secondary institutions.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE
Friday, February 23, 2007, 4:00pm
POSTER DISPLAY AND AWARDS EVENT
Posters will be displayed during UBC’s Celebrate Research Week, March 5 to 9, 2007 in the atrium of the AERL building, 2202 Main Mall, UBC Campus, Vancouver, BC. Awards will be presented on March 5, 2007 between 1:00 and 3:30 pm in AERL Room 120 in conjunction with the research forum, "Living with Climate Surprises? Approaches to Abrupt Climate Change and Complex Systems". Light refreshments will be served in the atrium following the forum to give students an opportunity to present their posters in an informal setting.
For more information, please contact Tina Neale.
2007 seminar series
Living with Climate Surprises? Approaches to Abrupt Climate Change and Complex Systems
March 5, 2007, 1:00-3:30 p.m., AERL 120
Over geological spans, climate is a wobbly and dynamical system. Numerous studies suggest we may be experiencing the onset of a rapid phase transition between the familiar Holocene climatic mode and some future quasi-stable steady state. Such a transition may present dramatic and unfamiliar challenges to ecosystems and human societies at all scales. In British Columbia, food security and fire risk are prominent uncertainties.
The profound uncertainties associated with abrupt climate change challenge conventional worldviews and warrant careful reflection and prudent preparation. Specific preparations include assessment and enhancement of household, local and bioregional adaptive capacities. This discussion forum will explore the implications of dynamical systems and abrupt climate change for a novel research agenda linking climate change and sustainable development.
Presenter:
Dr. Kurt Grimm, Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Discussants:
Dr. Hadi Dowlatabadi, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability
Dr. Philippe Gachon, Adaptation & Impacts Research Division, Environment Canada
Climate Change in High Definition: Scenarios for Impacts and Adaptation Research
March 6-7, 2007
Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel
Climate Change in High Definition (CCHD) will review the state-of-the-art in climate modeling, climate scenarios, downscaling tools and application of scenarios for decision-making. The meeting will also launch the new Climate Change Scenarios Network (CCSN) website and will offer hands-on training in Environment Canada's new statistical downscaling tool developed in collaboration with l'Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Eau, Terre et Environment (INRS-ETE), Université du Québec.
AMSD Seminar Series
AIRD and IRES jointly host a seminar series to create opportunities for dialogue between scientists, practitioners and stakeholders within the AMSD research initiative. The purpose of the seminars is to to share information about projects and cases targeting both climate change and sustainable development. In particular, we would like to encourage presentations by practitioners and researchers from different disciplines who are either collaborating on a research effort or who can provide interesting insights on themes/ideas/methods arising from different cases/research projects.
Winter 2007 Seminar Schedule (download poster)
A Small Fish in a Big Pond: Climate change and coastal communities in BC
Tuesday, November 28th, 2006
Preliminary results from the research project entitled "The Co-management of Climate Change in Coastal British Columbia: Social Capital, Trust and Capacity" indicate that remote and semi-remote communities along BC's coast are dealing with an ongoing and massive shift in social, economic and environmental conditions. The impacts of climate change, and the potential need to adapt to them at the community level, are embedded within a complex of problems and challenges, many of them tied to changing natural resource stocks. This presentation provides a progress report of the project and aims to encourage discussion of where and how climate change connects with the multiple issues that confront coastal communities.
Presenters:
Robin SydneySmith
Coastal Communities Project - Community University Research Alliance (CCP-CURA) and Coordinator C-CIARN BC
Ralph Matthews
Coastal Communities Project - Community University Research Alliance (CCP-CURA) and Dept. Anthropology & Sociology, UBC
Engaging Stakeholders on the Ground: Lessons in participatory research from the Okanagan Basin
Tuesday February 27th, 2:00 pm, AERL 107/108
Stakeholder participation has been a cornerstone of research on climate change and water resource management in the Okanagan Basin over the past seven years. This seminar will highlight the approaches to and the rich learning opportunities resulting from two stakeholder engagement activities conducted during this research. Results of the most recent research project will also be presented.
Presenters:
Stewart Cohen
Adaptation & Impacts Research Division, Environment Canada
Jeff Carmichael
Institute for Resources Environment & Sustainability, UBC
News from the Front: A research update on visualizing local climate change impacts/policies with GVRD communities
Tuesday April 24th, 2:00 pm, AERL 120
The Local Climate Change Visioning Project provides an innovative research framework to envision alternative climate change futures in B.C. The project uses GIS and 3D visualization to engage local experts and decision-makers in envisioning four dramatic yet defensible local climate change futures. This project probes the possibilities to bring global climate science to people's backyards to encourage local engagement for planning for responses and to motivate individual behavioural change.
Presenters:
Stephen Sheppard
The Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP), Forest Sciences Centre
Alison Shaw
The Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP), Forest Sciences Centre
Brent Burton
Policy and Planning Department, The Greater Vancouver Regional District
2006 Events:
Fall 2006 Seminar Series (View Poster)
Spring 2006 Seminar Series (View Poster)