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In response to the catastrophic flooding that occurred in British Columbia, Canada in November 2021, the City of Merritt is facing a difficult decision about whether to rebuild or not. The developing situation in Merritt provided a unique opportunity to explore the different types of adaptations (i.e., investments in climate resilient infrastructure, rebuilding, construction of structural mitigation, zoning, and buyouts) considered by policymakers in advance of official municipal decisions. Through qualitative mixed methods (e.g., interviews, open houses, town council meetings), the study explored preliminary discussions among decision makers surrounding long term risk reduction options including rebuild and retreat strategies, perceptions of flood risk, recovery challenges faced by small-scale municipalities, the development of the community’s flood mitigation plan, and recommendations for post-disaster transitional supports. The results indicated that communities in the post-disaster recovery phase are considering the use of buyouts as a risk reduction tool amongst broader flood mitigation strategies, however policy constraints and a lack of funding are impeding the implementation of a flood mitigation plan that includes buyouts. The findings suggest that decisions about post disaster recovery are often independent of broader municipal climate change adaptation plans instead focusing on short-term risk reduction mechanisms. Additionally, transitional supports including interim housing need to be accounted for in recovery planning. Governments in Canada can capitalize on the policy windows during the post-disaster recovery stage and learn from municipalities about the challenges and opportunities in the design and implementation of flood mitigation plans that can help to improve disaster policy.

Climate change is already occurring in the Arctic and the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment recently concluded that future climate change could be devastating for Inuit. This paper characterises vulnerability to climate change in two Inuit communities in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, focusing on the resource harvesting sector. In both communities, Inuit have demonstrated significant adaptability in the face of current changes in climatic conditions. This adaptability is facilitated by traditional Inuit knowledge, strong social networks, flexibility in resource use, and institutional support. Changing Inuit livelihoods, however, have undermined certain aspects of adaptive capacity and have resulted in emerging vulnerabilities. Global and regional climate projections indicate that climatic conditions which currently pose risks are expected to be negatively affected by future climate change. These projections are not without precedent and analysis of current vulnerability and identification of adaptation constraints by Inuit in the two communities indicate the continued importance of traditional coping mechanisms. The ability to draw on these coping mechanisms in light of future climate change, however, will be unequal and the research indicates that young Inuit and those without access to economic resources, in particular, are vulnerable.

How have property buyouts and disaster recovery assistance programs been implemented in Canadian communities? This paper compares contrasting policies and programs in two Canadian jurisdictions, Pointe Gatineau, Quebec and Constance Bay, Ontario—both of which experienced major flooding from the Ottawa River in 2017 and 2019. The floods highlighted the need for government interventions, including disaster recovery compensation and property buyouts, to support homeowners through the recovery process. This research adopts the Protect, Accommodate, Retreat and Avoid (PARA) framework to characterize and evaluate the different policy responses to the flood events in the two provinces in the broader context of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Through qualitative research methods, the study assessed the strengths and weakness of the provincial policy responses, explained why different policies were created in Ontario and Quebec (despite sharing a common river and flood risks), described how the policy deployment strategies evolved and examined how the programs prompted homeowners to make the decision to either retreat or rebuild. Both case studies involved reviewing flood timelines and recovery efforts, examining the disaster recovery policies implemented and assessing the application of property buyouts in flooded communities. The case studies were then compared to draw out cross-case insights. The paper concludes with lessons for designing effective property buyout programs. This study is intended to assist policymakers to make informed, evidence-based decisions that can protect communities from inundations risks and build long-term resilience against flood hazards.

Better integration of resilience and climate change adaptation can help building climate-resilient development. Yet, resilience and adaptation to climate change have evolved largely along parallel paths with little cross-fertilization. Conceptual vagueness around resilience makes it challenging to ascertain what elements of resilience thinking have the greatest potential to enhance climate change adaptation and contribute to broader sustainable development goals. This article distills nine principles from the resilience literature to build a framework to assess 224 climate change adaptation strategies proposed by researchers and practitioners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Our analysis concludes that adaptation strategies in this data set emphasize initiatives that increase social and ecological diversity, strengthen learning processes, build functional redundancy, enhance connectivity between social and ecological elements, pay attention to the management of slow variables, and provide mechanisms for increasing participation and polycentric governance. At the same time, the adaptation options examined generally lacked a system’s perspective, suggesting that there is still important work ahead to move toward a climate-resilient development model.

\"Canadian farming has evolved under the influence of climate and weather -- a process that continues with climate change. In farming systems across the country, effective risk management is necessary to deal with drought, flooding, and extreme weather, and to adapt to altered climate and weather conditions. Unfortunately, climate change risks and opportunities are not always well understood among researchers and policy makers in the Canadian agri-food sector. This book addresses that gap. Farming in a Changing Climate provides a wide-ranging synopsis of what climate change means for Canadian agriculture, explores different approaches to the topic, and presents examples of current research. It covers all agricultural regions and a wide variety of commodity production and farming systems. Comments from agricultural producers and policy makers add a practical component to the book and emphasize the value of the applied research. This comprehensive survey synthesizes twenty years of research on climate change and Canadian agriculture. The book will be of interest to scholars in environmental studies, geography, and sociology; policy analysts and policy makers; and representatives of the agri-food industry.\"--pub. desc.

Although there is considerable historical literature describing the social and economic impact of drought on the prairies in the 1930s, little has been written about the challenges presented by drought in more contemporary times. The drought of 2001-02 was, for example, the most recent large-area, intense, and prolonged drought in Canada and one of Canada's most costly natural disasters in a century. Vulnerability and Adaptation to Drought describes the impacts of droughts and the adaptations made in prairie agriculture over recent decades. These adaptations have enhanced the capacity of rural communities to withstand drought. However, despite the high levels of technical adaptation that have occurred, and the existing human capital and vibrant social and information networks, agricultural producers in the prairie region remain vulnerable to severe droughts that last more than a couple of years. Research findings and projections suggest that droughts could become more frequent, more severe, and of longer duration in the region over the course of the 21st century. This book provides insights into the conditions generating these challenges and the measures required to reduce vulnerability of prairie communities to them. Developing greater understanding of the social forces and conditions that have contributed to enhanced resilience, as well as those which detract from successful adaptation, is a principal theme of the book. To that end, the book examines drought through an interdisciplinary lens encompassing climate science and the social sciences. Two of the chapters are based on the drought experiences of other countries in order to provide a comparative assessment.

Impacts of climate change have been observed in natural systems and are expected to intensify in future decades (IPCC in Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPPC, Geneva, 2014). Governments are seeking to establish adaptive measures for minimizing the effects of climate change on vulnerable citizen groups, economic sectors and critical infrastructure (Adger et al. in Global Environ Change 15(2):77-86, 2005. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2004.12.005; Smit and Wandel in Global Environ Change 16(3):282-292, 2006. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.03.008). Coastal areas are particularly vulnerable to changing conditions due to rising sea levels and storm event intensification that produce new flood exposures (Richards and Daigle in Government of Prince Edward Island, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 2011 http://www.gov.pe.ca/ photos/original/ccscenarios.pdf). However, communities oftentimes lack access to locally-relevant climate change information that can support adaptation planning. This research introduces the use of a Geoweb tool for supporting local climate change adaptation efforts in coastal Canadian communities. The Geoweb tool (called \"AdaptNS\") is a web-based visualization tool that displays interactive flood exposure maps generated using local climate change projections of sea level rise and storm surge impacts between the years 2000 and 2100. AdaptNS includes participatory features that allow users to identify and share specific locations to protect against present and future coastal flood events. By soliciting feedback from community members, AdaptNS is shown to support local adaptation through the provision of flood exposure visuals, as a platform for identifying adaptation priorities, and as an avenue to communicate local risks to external entities that could facilitate local adaptation initiatives (e.g. upper levels of government). Future Geoweb research directions include improving the visualization of climate change projection uncertainties, the expansion of informational and participation capabilities, and understanding the potential for long-term adoption of Geoweb tools in adaptation decision-making.

Covering all agricultural regions and a wide variety of commodity production and farming systems, this comprehensive survey synthesizes twenty years of research on climate change and Canadian agriculture.

Livelihoods in drylands are already challenged by the demands of climate variability, and climate change is expected to have further implications for water resource availability in these regions. This paper characterizes the vulnerability of an irrigation-dependent agricultural community located in the Elqui River Basin of Northern Chile to water and climate-related conditions in light of climate change. The paper documents the exposures and sensitivities faced by the community in light of current water shortages, and identifies their ability to manage these exposures under a changing climate. The IPCC identifies potentially increased aridity in this region with climate change; furthermore, the Elqui River is fed by snowmelt and glaciers, and its flows will be affected by a warming climate. Community vulnerability occurs within a broader physical, economic, political and social context, and vulnerability in the community varies amongst occupations, resource uses and accessibility to water resources, making some more susceptible to changing conditions in the future. This case study highlights the need for adaptation to current land and water management practices to maintain livelihoods in the face of changes many people are not expecting.

Research conducted with the communities of Arctic Bay and Igloolik in Nunavut identified key areas where policy can help Inuit reduce their vulnerability to climate change, focusing on the renewable resource harvesting sector. The policy responses are based on an understanding of policy development and decision making and on an understanding of the processes that shape vulnerability, which in Nunavut comprise the erosion of traditional Inuit knowledge and land-based skills, the weakening of social networks, and a reduction in harvesting flexibility. Policies relating to cultural preservation, wildlife comanagement, and harvester support can serve as entry points for influencing these processes. Our recommendations fall within the mandates of the Government of Nunavut and the institutions created under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, and they have been identified as policy priorities by communities and Inuit organizations. /// Grâce à des recherches effectuées auprès des collectivités de la baie de l'Arctique et d'Igloolik au Nunavut, on a réussi à déterminer comment la politique peut rendre les Inuits moins vulnérables au changement climatique en se concentrant sur le secteur de l'exploitation des ressources renouvelables. La compréhension de l'élaboration des politiques, de la prise de décisions et des processus qui engendrent la vulnérabilité permet d'aboutir à des réponses en vue de l'établissement de politiques. Au Nunavut, cette vulnérabilité se traduit par l'érosion des connaissances traditionnelles inuites et des habiletés d'utilisation de la terre, l'affaiblissement des réseaux sociaux et l'atténuation de la souplesse caractérisant l'exploitation. Les politiques en matière de conservation culturelle, de cogestion de la faune et de soutien à l'exploitation servent de point d'entrée pour influencer ces processus. Nos recommandations cadrent avec les mandats du gouvernement du Nunavut et des établissements créés en vertu de l'Entente de revendication territoriale du Nunavut. Les collectivités et organismes inuits les considèrent comme des priorités en matière de politique.