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Priority Issues on Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change
(Draft)
Eric Taylor
Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network
December 2003
Priority Issues for Stakeholders and Aboriginal Communities
C-CIARN Atlantic Region
Communities
- Economic survival and diversifying of the economy of communities
dependent on single resource industries (i.e. forestry and fisheries).
- Improving public health infrastructure to mitigate the threats
from heat, air, and water quality, vector-borne disease, and other
climate-affected health threats.
- Identification and protection of traditional resources used
by aboriginal peoples that may be adversely affected by climate
change.
- Incorporation of climate change vulnerability into transportation,
settlement, and other land use plans and initiatives.
- Redevelopment of standards for new and upgraded buildings and
infrastructure and the redevelopment of building codes and construction
standards.
- Introduction of climate change - -particularly the vulnerability
to sea level rise, storm surges, increased winter wave action
and winter flooding due to ice changes - into infrastructure life-cycle
planning in communities, including the maintenance and improvements
of dykes, sewer, and water systems, emergency planning systems,
coastal roads, flood plain zoning, and property.
- Protection, abandonment, compensation, marketing, and legal
issues related to coastal property and private residences facing
increased erosion in the future.
- Reliability of surface and ground potable water supplies.
- Loss or gain of property & changes in property value due
to changing water levels, erosion and/or flooding.
- Cost of converting privately owned coastal land back to public
land in most vulnerable areas vs. the costs of fortification and/or
compensation.
- Vulnerability of northern Labrador communities dependent on
ice for commercial, recreational, and traditional travel and access.
- Potential liability of government agencies to provide coastal
erosion and storm surge predictions and resources for coastal
adaptation.
Industrial and Economic Sectors
- Incorporation of climate change impacts into irrigation and
soil moisture management in agricultural regions facing water
deficits.
- Monitoring for, and adapting to, new and changing pest and disease
regimes in agriculture and forestry.
- Inclusion of the potential for long term changes in precipitation
patterns in hydroelectric development plans and management.
- Consideration of potential threats to forest resources in silviculture,
harvesting and other forest management issues.
- Diversifying the fishing industry to respond to the possible
long term declines and increases in different fish stocks and
other marine resources.
- Incorporation of the impacts of a possible shorter sea ice
season into future plans of offshore oil and gas exploration and
marine transportation.
- Coastal transportation:
- Protection or relocation of coastal roads, particularly
in low-lying areas or along shorelines that are vulnerable
to rising sea level, erosion, storm surges, flooding, or permafrost
degradation.
- Opportunity to extend the winter shipping season and increase
the access to shipping ports now closed seasonally due to
sea-ice.
- Improving safety of lake and ocean-going vessels related
to potential changes in bathymetry and the increase in storminess.
- Vulnerability of port facilities and associated infrastructure
due to changes in water level, increased wave activity, storm
surges, flooding, and ice ride--up and pile-up.
- Accommodation of larger ocean vessels as ports deepen with
sea level rise.
- Measuring the overall multiplier effects of climate change on
provincial economies in Atlantic Canada, in terms of gross domestic
product, employment, and wages.
Natural Resources
- Maintenance of terrestrial and marine biodiversity in the face
of climate change and habitat reduction.
- Safeguarding of isolated populations and ecosystems, such as
in parks and other protected areas.
- Incorporation of the threats of the northward migration of
alien species into habitat and wildlife management.
- Safeguarding important coastal wetlands in the face of coastal
erosion and enhanced coastal protection.
- Water Resources:
- Reliable supplies of clean drinking water from surface
and ground water sources.
- Conservation and managing demand of water supplies.
- Increasing concentration of contaminants in streams, lakes
and other water sources caused by increased evaporation and
decreased precipitation.
- Strategic planning of water supply system upgrades.
- Reliability of water resources for hydro power generation.
- Vulnerability of tourism industry to lower lake or river
levels
- Liberation of contaminants from sediments by erosion brought
on by increased surface runoff, flooding, storm surges, sea
level rise, and wave action.
- Salt water intrusion of coastal fresh water aquifers.
- Aquatic resources
- Planning for the increased availability of commercially
viable resources of some species (e.g. shad) in southern waters.
- Development of new techniques to forecast abundance of
stocks of existing and new commercial species.
- Management of freshwater systems that are vulnerable to
invasion of warm water species.
- Planning for the development of new sports and commercial
fisheries in lakes that will become more favourable to warm
water species such as smallmouth and largemouth bass and carp.
- Siting of aquaculture facilities.
Health and Safety
- A lack of community knowledge and awareness of the present day
processes of erosion, flooding, and changing water levels (i.e.
development is presently occurring in vulnerable areas creating
even greater risk with climate change).
- Vulnerability of infrastructure such as municipal sewer, wastewater
and water facilities, rural water supplies, coastal roads, emergency
planning, etc.
- Strengthening of weather warning system for coastal storms and
forecasting of storms surge and flooding hazards.
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