Landscapes - People - Global change

Category: Climate change (Page 1 of 26)

New review paper by Robin on place and mobility

Very excited to announce the first paper out of Robin Willcocks-Musselman’s interdisciplinary PhD process, co-authored with her committee members Karen Foster, Julia Baird and Julia Woodhall-Melnik. This open access paper, Finding mobility in place attachment research: lessons for managed retreat, is in a special issue of the journal Frontiers in Climate that came out of the Columbia Managed Retreat conference back in 2023. In this thorough review tackled in her comprehensive exam, Robin goes deep on theories of place and what they have to say about mobility overall, and the specific implications for forced relocations such as during managed retreat for climate adaptation. The implications can be positive and negative, and her empirical work will seek to explore this in more detail in relation to managed retreat in the Atlantic region. Bravo, Robin!

This table from the paper synthesizes the positive and negative implications of place for managed retreat.

Two papers out on Bay of Fundy by Elson

Figure 4 in Galang et al (2025) in Sustainability Science, showing increases in empathy measures.

Figure 4 in Galang et al (2025) in Sustainability Science, showing increases in empathy measures.

Kudos to McGill Bennett-lab NSERC ResNet PhD student Elson Galang whose first two PhD papers came out this past week, both based (at least in part) on the workshops that he led at SMU about the Bay of Fundy NSERC ResNet case study in November 2022. The first one came out in Sustainability Science on January 16th, Co-imagining future scenarios can enhance environmental actors’ empathy toward future generations and non-human life-forms, that found measurable impacts on participants’ empathy towards future people and other life forms, the latter even lasting 3 months after the event. This is tantalizing evidence of the value of participating in the development of environmental scenarios. The second paper came out in Environmental Science & Policy on Jan 21st, Participatory scenario planning: A social learning approach to build systems thinking and trust for sustainable environmental governance. This shares more good news about participation in such processes in relation to the cognitive, relational and normative dimensions of social learning. Both papers also describe innovative methodological tools for assessing these complex ideas. Congratulations, Elson!

 

Eastern shore citizen science for TranSECT

Camilo Botero presents the project and preliminary results to the community at the Sheet Harbour Lion’s Club.

Thanks to Moira Donovan for the great article out on CBC today, Eastern Shore project harnesses community for climate science. The piece is about one of the 14 work packages within TranSECT, the large research project I co-lead out of the new CFREF project Transforming Climate Action. The Dal-based team for this work package about risk governance and citizen science comprises Camilo Botero, Ron Pelot and Floris Goerlandt, in partnership with Eastern Shore churches and schools. This article provides me a great excuse to post a few pictures from the end of November when TranSECT co-lead Ian Stewart and I attended an event in Sheet Harbour recognizing the end of the pilot phase of this innovative citizen science project.

The Bishop of the Anglican church diocese that is a key partner for the project reflects on what she has heard. 

On the return, Ian and I spied these across the inlet and went across to investigate: massive ‘transition pieces’ for offshore wind turbines, shipped there from Europe and awaiting further transportation to Martha’s Vineyard in the US). Soon I expect we’ll be seeing more of these arriving for use off Nova Scotia.

New ResNet paper feat. Bay of Fundy

A quick note today to celebrate a new paper out in People and Nature, led by ResNet McGill PhD student Yiyi Zhang. The paper, Servicesheds connect people to the landscapes upon which they depend, uses two landscape case studies to demonstrate a new framework (see below) for delineating servicesheds. In the Bay of Fundy she explored “fisheries benefitting fishers, and flood protection benefitting flood-prone communities”. The Monteregie of Quebec is the other case study, with a focus on agriculture. Her study explicitly explores the impacts of tidal wetlands on coastal protection compared with the dykes that substitute that service. An ambitious study, conceptually and practically. Congratulations Yiyi and her team at McGill, including Brian Robinson and Hugo Thierry.

Zhang et al. figure 2 outlining the serviceshed framework

RSC College Induction

At the front of the College bus, in formation waiting to enter the ceremony.

I’m in Toronto after a redeye from Vancouver after the Celebration of Excellence and Engagement (COEE) event hosted by SFU. The COEE is where the Royal Society of Canada (RSC)  inducts new Fellows and members of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, among other things. It has been a lovely few days at the Parq complex near False Creek.

On the first day I was honored to be asked to participate in a climate change panel for grade 10-12 students run by Let’s Talk Science in partnership with the RSC, along with a Kwakwaka’wakw documentarian and master carver Carey Newman, NRC aerosol chemist Joel Corbin and UTM climate physicist Kent Moore. I loved meeting students like Amaya and her social science teacher who are thinking big thoughts about the role of people in climate change problems and solutions.

This is what the induction looked like at home: Elizabeth Dubois introduces me, to my clear delight.

Me and Melanie Lemire before the College induction ceremony.

The next day was Induction Day, where it became pretty clear that we in the College have a lot more fun than the Fellows. We all took turns introducing one of the other new College members based on a bit of independent research, and we were all challenged to find a connection between our own work and that of the person we are introducing. I introduced the UT translational genomics researcher Trevor Pugh, and the UOttawa social media and politics researcher Elizabeth Dubois introduced me. It is humbling company, indeed! Was lovely to be in the same college class as TranSECT co-lead Melanie Lemire, meet incoming RSC President and Dal Emerita Francoise Baylis, and to get to know Penny Tham, member of the Dalhousie Advisory Council, representing Dalhousie at this year’s COEE.

The next day we had the opportunity to have breakout room discussions across the attending Fellows, College members and university administrators about some key issues for Canada and what role the RSC can take in ameliorating them. The power (and pleasure) was clear of bringing people to a common focus across so many different fields and expertise.

As a final note, I loved the opportunities between events to get out and enjoy the Vancouver seawall, including witnessing the rare asperitas cloud formation (first observed only in 2006!) over False Creek on Friday, and seeing some of the naturalization underway of that shoreline, perhaps as a result of the inspiring reimagination process the City of Vancouver did a few years ago for False Creek that we talk about in our recent paper in the Journal of Flood Risk Management. There is some interesting public art along that shore, too, that seemed particularly interesting given the context of the climate change focus of the COEE. Connecting with my old friend Lynn Ayers from my Prince George days was the cherry on top of my trip.

The rare asperitas cloud formation from Leg in Boot Square, Vancouver

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