2015

Provincial Workshop

March 5, 2015

Leduc, AB

Practical Adaptation Measures for Alberta Municipalities

Photo credit:

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The “Practical Adaptation Measures for Alberta Municipalities” workshop was held on March 5, 2015

in Leduc, Alberta as a collaborative effort between the Prairie Regional Adaptation Collaborative and the

Municipal Climate Change Action Centre.

The conversation was enriched by participants from multiple municipalities within the province,

including participants from Environmental Stewardship, Engineering, Operations, Public Works and

Sustainability. Also in attendance were representatives from the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring

Institute, All One Sky Foundation, the Insurance Bureau of Canada and the Ministries of Environment

and Sustainable Resource Development, Infrastructure, Municipal Affairs and Agriculture and Rural

Development from the Government of Alberta. A handful of other participants also joined the

discussion, including engaged citizens and interested industry contacts.

The full-day workshop featured presentations from leading organizations addressing climate change

adaptation, including the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Prairie Adaptation Research

Collaborative (PARC), Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR), City of Leduc, Urban Systems

Engineering, Miistakis Institute, and Prairies Regional Adaptation Collaborative (PRAC).

Participants also took part in a World Café session, spurring conversation around adaptation, including

opportunities and barriers.

The day began with a lively introduction from the Mayor of Leduc, Greg Krischke, who suggested that

these types of workshops are critical for municipalities who have started or are looking at starting

climate change adaptation planning. Mayor Krischke noted as well that major growth over the last

decade in the mid-sized municipalities mean there is now a significant number of people exposed to

climate change related hazards in less-populated regions of Alberta; the challenges associated with the

changing climate impact all Albertans.

The PRAC Secretariat, Terry Duguid introduced the PRAC as a joint federal -provincial program, driven

by funding from Natural Resources Canada. The first phase of the PRAC was to assess vulnerabilities,

while in this stage the PRAC is engaging with stakeholders and decision makers to mainstream

adaptation considerations. This provincial workshop is a key output of the PRAC work plan for 2014/15.

The objectives of this workshop were to provide information on:

how adaptation can be applied in infrastructure planning and management;

case studies of jurisdictions that have successfully implemented resiliency projects;

and

resources and strategies to take meaningful action on adaptation.

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Climate Change Risks and Impacts in Alberta

Engineering Adaptation: Assessing and Addressing Climate Risks to Infrastructure

Dr. David Sauchyn, Research Professor at the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative (PARC) at the

University of Regina spoke to the changing climate and how this may impact us moving forward. David’s

refreshing and informative presentation highlighted some key messages regarding climate change and

variability in the prairies. Under climate change, extreme weather events are expected to occur more

frequently; however, our hundred-year record of climate observations is too short to tell what will

happen in the next thousand years. The global air temperature trend was steadily rising, but has leveled

off in the last five years despite CO2 concentrations continuing to rise. Other indicators continue to show

evidence of climate change such as the amount of sea ice, glacier and ice cap retreat/thinning, ocean

temperatures and the extent of winter snow cover.

In terms of adaptation, Dr. Sauchyn suggested that temporal considerations are important as planning

will look different when addressing daily, seasonal or decadal scale events and trends. Overlapping

adaptation measures may be required for different time scale hazards. A key consideration for Western

Canada is that there is a high degree of natural variability and therefore, it is more challenging to detect

climate change both anecdotally and using instruments. We do know that we are losing the advantage

of a cold winter due to climate change, which is visible through the rise in pests and disease vectors that

were previously held at bay by cold temperatures. David’s final message was that if we are not currently

designing, planning and building for climate variability, how can we expect to plan for climate change?

We cannot assume that the climate is static, or that the past will represent the future.

To continue our discussion climate risks, we heard

from Dr. Suzan Lapp, a Water Resources

Specialist at Urban Systems Engineering. Suzan’s

expertise in both watershed management and

climate change allowed her to succinctly and

effectively communicate risks to infrastructure.

Suzan echoed David’s messages around climate

change resulting in more extreme weather events,

and also noted the hazardous quality of wind

especially for infrastructure. Climate change

impacts are not all large events – Suzan used the

example of warmer winters. Reoccurring warmer winters result in more freeze-thaw effects on roads,

leading to more potholes. Each pothole is inexpensive to repair, but the cost over years can be

staggering. A lot of our old infrastructure was not designed to handle ‘new’ extreme events.

In order to address climate challenges to infrastructure, Suzan suggested that risk assessment is vital to

making informed decisions. Methods for this include the Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability

Committee (PIEVC) Protocol and risk assessment through asset management (which should include

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Resiliency in Action: Practical Approaches for Extreme Rain and Wildland Fire

natural areas), as well as an assessment of a municipality’s emergency response plan. One feature of

these methods is to look at the condition of the infrastructure as well as its ability to handle an extreme

event. Suzan advocated on the importance of education, and that there is a need to spend time with

stakeholders and decision-makers to inform them of climate risks and the potential consequence of

inaction. One way to address climate change at the municipal level is to designate a climate change or

watershed spokesperson whose role is to champion related issues.

During the question and answer period, Suzan identified that communities can make better financial

choices for cost effective adaptation measures by beginning to get climate change incorporated into

policy and strategy documents. Policy needs to lead the change in thinking and protect people into the

future, especially in the case of recent impacts from extreme events, which comes back to good

planning. A multidisciplinary approach is required for long lasting solutions.

Dan Sandink, Manager of Resilient Communities and Research with the Institute of Catastrophic Loss

Reduction (ICLR), was the next speaker at the workshop. Dan’s work at ICLR has focused on public risk

perception and behaviour, urban flooding, climate change adaptation, wildland fire and the role of

insurance in the management of natural hazards. He highlighted the marked increase in damages

associated with extreme rainfall events, and also noted that most are not insured through homeowner

overland flooding. The majority of damages and claims for homeowners are associated with sewer

backup, which is exacerbated due to the move to basement living. Sanitary sewer systems that are filled

beyond capacity during extreme rainfall events can cause substantial damages to municipal

infrastructure as well.

Dan offered several examples of resiliency planning throughout his

presentation, including an example in Quebec City. The downspout

disconnection program driver was that over half of the homes in the

region were connected to foundation drainage, putting additional

load on the municipal sewer system. A three-phased approach

(voluntary, mandatory, fine for non-compliance) to encourage

disconnection and surface drainage led to one hundred per cent

compliance. Wildland fire is another extreme event that requires

proactive planning. Fire management professionals are engaging with

municipalities to become more proactive in planning, with focus on

various programs such as FireSmart in Alberta.

Recently the Canadian Water Network funded the IDFCC tool for

deriving rainfall intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves for future

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Building Political Will to Take Action: Leduc’s Weather and Climate Readiness Plan

climate scenarios, which has been used by many consultants and members of the public at this point.

The ICLR also recently developed a book highlighting adaptation measures in 20 Canadian cities, “Cities

Adapt to Extreme Rainfall: Celebrating Local Leadership” which was made available to participants.

Mayor Greg Krischke and Kerra Chomlak, Environment Sustainability Coordinator with the City of

Leduc discussed gaining traction for developing municipal action plans. Kerra joined the City of Leduc as

Environmental Sustainability Coordinator several years ago, establishing the City’s first Environmental

Plan in 2012 to achieve a healthy and green Leduc. The Weather and Climate Readiness Plan was

released in late 2014, and this was the focus of the presentation.

Leduc City Council is looking to be proactive and sees a need to lead change; the city is seeking to be a

leader in environmental and sustainability issues. Kerra referred to the City of Leduc Environmental

Plan, was a broad plan that covered trees, natural areas, water, climate change and other environmental

issues. It was this plan that brought focus to climate change readiness and adaptation planning which

was selected as a priority action item.

Leduc conducted a risk assessment which

identified climate threats to the city –

with freezing rain storms and extreme

precipitation recognized as top risks.

The Weather and Climate Readiness Plan

was approved by Council in October, and

there will be several considerations put

forward for this year budget to address

some of the short-term action items

identified. Kerra and Mayor Krischke

received quite a few questions from

interested workshop participants. When asked how the province was involved in the plan, Kerra

suggested that there were minimal tools developed in Alberta to support municipalities, so she looked

to municipalities in British Columbia as there are more advanced resources available. She mentioned

that municipalities could benefit from guidance from the province, but need to be leaders as well.

Mayor Krischke spoke to the potential ‘penalty to being proactive,’ with a clear example of not receiving

funding to rebuild after catastrophic events. He suggested that support from Federal and Provincial

governments is needed to ensure municipalities are enabled to be proactive. There currently is not a

substantial push to engage constituents in this phase, as the focus is currently on waste reduction.

Ideally, the City of Leduc would like to build on this work going forward to expand to other issues, such

as climate change adaptation.

The morning session ended positively and with much enthusiasm by participants. The workshop evolved

into a collaborative World Café session after the lunch break.

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World Café:

Building the Straw Man’s Armor – Bringing Adaptation to the Decision-Making Table

A

In an effort to create context and allow participants to engage in the material presented thus far, Devin

Causley, Manager of Climate Change Programs with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities

facilitated a World Café session.

The session was developed based around a democratic process of selecting “topic tables” for discussion.

The ten topics originally presented to the group were:

1. Planning/building resilience,

2. Economics of adaptation,

3. Risks to the built environment,

4. Communicating about climate

impacts,

5. New infrastructure development,

6. Mainstreaming,

7. Assessing preparedness,

8. Transportation,

9. Tourism and recreation, and

10. Water resources.

Participants were invited to vote on their top three topics for discussion (using post-it flags) and to add

to the list of the topics if they chose. “Opportunities” was listed as another topic option. At the end of

the lunch break, we had landed on the seven topic tables for the World Café session:

1. Planning/building resilience

2. Economics of adaptation

3. Risks to the built environment

4. Communicating about climate impacts

5. New infrastructure development

6. Assessing preparedness

7. Water resources

Participants self-selected to discuss whichever topic tended to be of most interest to them. Devin noted

that there would be an opportunity to discuss other topics over the course of three rounds of questions.

For this World Café session, the organizers had predetermined three questions to spur discussion and

encourage application of the concepts introduced during the morning session.

We completed our collaborative session by asking the participants to consider “What is adaptation?”

1. Why are we adapting to the changing climate?

2. What is discouraging us?

3. What is working well?

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Why are we adapting to the changing climate?

Participants were invited to discuss why we are adapting, based on the topic that they had initially self-

selected into. A few key points that were discussed for each topic included:

Planning and building resilience

Expectation management – not using past information to color the future

Building flexibility for infrastructure, heat sharing and communication sharing (for example)

Addressing both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ adaptation measures

Two types of adaptation: reactive and proactive

Economics of adaptation

Need to be able to collect data

Address the costs of action vs. the costs of inaction; expensive to act or not to act

Knowledge and information exists to conduct economic analysis in Alberta, however has not

been done

Difficult to measure benefits – measurement of success in dollars?

Infrastructure and the built environment

Participants chose not to collaborate on this question.

Communicating about climate impacts

Avoiding disruption

Challenges between gradual change

as opposed to catastrophic events

Safety

Focus on the implications of change

New infrastructure development

Response to growth demands and

pressures

Changing requirements for

developers; consideration in new

engineering standards

Need flexible infrastructure (for example, fuel switching and energy planning)

Grant opportunities

Assessing preparedness

Learning from previous emergency situations, such as the social impacts of Slave Lake wildland

fire

Simulation modelling

Understanding the science of surge capacity

Forecasting

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What is discouraging us?

Participants answered this second round of questions either within the same topic or a new discussion

topic. Some interesting points that emerged included:

Planning and building resilience

No resources for planning

Lack of provincial support

Not knowing where to start

Economics of adaptation

Timelines do not always align with the fiscal year, or the political cycle (too long)

Competing priorities within and between communities

Idling costs, regarding insurance and where to build, adds to the consumer costs

Applying long terms costs to decision-making today is a challenge

Infrastructure and the built environment

Participants chose not to collaborate on this question.

Communicating about climate impacts

Challenging to act on climate change because of conflicts with how many people make a living

Hard to keep climate change as a top of mind priority, as it is such a complex issue

When it comes to budget, climate change can be low on the priority list

New infrastructure development

Lack of information

Competing priorities

Perception of additional costs to certify a building as “green”

Assessing preparedness

Ignorance of responsibility

Different definitions of “preparedness”

Vastness of scope for preparedness and/or coordination of different departments

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What is working well?

Participants were invited to discuss what was working well for adaptation. The conversation tended to

address two general considerations, soft adaptation measures and hard measures.

Soft measures tended to include the interpretation and communication around climate change

adaptation. The Wordle below highlights the prominence of various suggestions made by the

participants, with larger words correlating to a higher frequency of mentions. Notably, there are some

interesting points that emerge from this exercise:

Examples

Available

Age

Municipalities

Today

Change

Climate

Political

Starting

Other anecdotal notes from the discussion included:

“Extreme weather events make it easier to talk about climate change, and we now have strong

local examples.”

“We are getting better at explaining the science behind [climate change].”

“The tools are there. These are the right people, at the right time.”

“The process was initially quite complicated, but now it is much more standard – not as

daunting for politicians.”

“There are platforms to exchange information on international, national and provincial scales.”

“Governments are investing research and funding programs.”

“New technology has enhanced communication, such as information graphics on Twitter and

Facebook, which can lead to broader innovation.”

“Soft” adaptation measures, as discussed by workshop participants.

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Hard measures were specific, tangible considerations that could be implemented to modify the built or

physical environment. For comparison, the following Wordle shows the prominence of various

suggestions made by the participants. From this exercise, a few substantial terms emerged:

Building

Change

Practice

Zone

Municipalities

Specific notes around hard adaptation measures include:

“Professional organizations are demanding

climate change in their code of practice.”

“There is growing awareness of not

building in flood plains, between IBC, the

Government of Alberta, and

municipalities.”

“Industry groups are creating communities

of practice, including the CaGBC and

BOMA.”

“There are opportunities for Greenfield

development – right from the start.”

“User fees associated with bad practices.”

“FireSmart is available for communities.”

“Hard” adaptation measures, as discussed by workshop participants.

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Adapt-action: Helping Municipalities Become More Resilient to Climate Change

Key Resources to Kickstart Municipal Action

After the enlightening discussion around opportunities and barriers to adaptation applications, Guy

Greenaway, Senior Project Manager with the Miistakis Institute presented on a new tool available to

municipalities. To aid with local climate change adaptation, the Miistakis Institute has been working to

develop a tool for municipalities to become more resilient to climate change. Adapt-action was

developed under the Climate Change Emissions Management Corporation funded ABMI Biodiversity

Management and Climate Change Adaptation project. Adapt-action is a web-based tool that rural

municipalities in southern Alberta can use to support climate change adaptation using a narrative

approach. It is currently in the beta-testing phase and should be available for use by the end of March.

Guy spoke to several reports that were created during the tool development process, including:

exploring existing climate change adaptation tools, downscaling climate change models (focusing on

narratives rather than mathematics), municipal policy reviews, implications of climate change,

ecosystem-based adaptation strategies, and engagement strategies. These reports can be found on the

Biodiversity Management and Climate Change Adaptation website.

Miistakis learned many lessons learned over the course of tool development, which include the need to

blend hard (e.g. engineered) and soft approaches to adaptation, and identify policy “insertion points”

for incorporating climate change into decision making. Additionally, Guy suggested that using ecosystem

service concepts helps to connect biodiversity to local adaptation decision making. Ecosystem-based

adaptation is a no regrets/co-benefits approach which is cost effective and a viable route for climate

resilience.

To complete the day, Devin Causley returned to deliver a presentation that really hit home with

municipalities. The 2014 National Municipal Adaptation Survey showed that local governments in

Canada are becoming increasingly aware of climate change, however most have not started proactively

developing a plan or strategy. Barriers to integration include: awareness (although it is increasing), the

gap between science and local planning, uncertainty affecting the willingness to take action, availability

of tools, competing priorities, and a lack of requirement of inclusion of climate change in funding

programs .

Devin gave examples of tangible resources that municipalities may use to work through adaptation

planning, including the ICLEI Canada Building Adaptation and Resilient Communities (BARC) program,

PIEVC protocol and the Adaptation Library. He also offered insight into the FCM’s Green Municipalities

Fund (GMF) which offers grants for local climate action plans and sustainable neighbourhood action

plans.

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Summary

Devin ended his presentation by offering a top ten list of actions for municipalities to be more resilient

to climate change:

1. Protect natural areas.

2. Identify flood prone areas and enforce no development policies.

3. Increase amount of permeable surfaces.

4. Incorporate climate vulnerability assessments as part of standard risk assessment.

5. Increase local weather monitoring.

6. Disconnecting downspouts.

7. Update building design standards looking at future conditions.

8. Incorporate climate change factors into approval process for new development.

9. Comprehensive vulnerability assessments to identify most likely impacts.

10. Manage expectations.

This workshop was both well received and well-attended. We learned about climate impacts, technical

considerations, political uptake, and how municipalities can employ tools to better prepare for the

changing climate.

Throughout the course of this workshop, we landed on several overarching themes.

1. Alberta municipalities are willing, interested and gaining capacity to adapt. Our participants

were clearly well-informed, and are actively looking to increase their toolkits.

2. Approaches to adaptation can be either hard or soft. Both of these considerations can present

opportunities and barriers to adapting.

3. Some municipalities have been successful in implementing resiliency projects. For example,

flood mitigation, stormwater management and wildland fire preparations are possible. Many of

these projects have considered adaptation with both hard and soft lenses.

4. There is a gap in knowledge around how to adapt and a perceived lack of political will to make

changes. However, municipalities such as Leduc have effectively implemented a plan with

minimal resources and strong political champions. There are tools available (e.g. ICLEI BARC) and

leading communities that can assist others in moving forward.