One of the better titles I’ve seen recently is for a recent article in The Narwhal by Xavi Richer Viz, What’s scarier for Canadian communities — floods, or flood maps? It’s an open question, as far as I can tell. Richer Viz tells some interesting stories about public push-back in various locations after the release of flood risk mapping, putting Canada decades behind other jurisdictions with respect to such public interest information. I enjoyed my conversation with Richer Viz, telling him about the situation in Nova Scotia and sharing some of the research done with recent MES Samantha Howard.
Category: research impact (Page 1 of 12)
Sydney, NS, during the Thanksgiving floods of 2016.
Robin Willcocks-Musselman
Lab member Robin Willcocks-Musselman is currently looking for people who have had to relocate in the face of risks like floods, fire, or erosion. Her IDPhD study is trying to understand the experience of such relocations. This morning, coinciding with the anniversary of the Thanksgiving floods in Cape Breton back in 2016 that led to some residential buyouts, Frances Willick from CBC has published an excellent article to support Robin’s recruitment process: Have you moved due to climate risks in Atlantic Canada? This researcher wants to talk to you. Participating in the study will involve interviews to explore the experience and its impacts on attachment to the places that people care about. Learning more about this can help us advise governments about how to design programs when relocation becomes necessary in the face of unavoidable risks. Please help spread the word if you know anyone who has been affected. Robin’s contact details are in the article linked above.
The Sherren lab, sans Sherren, fall 2025
Solidarity on the picket line
I was thrilled to have some of my lab members join the picket line today, after they had their own informal meet-and-greet at the Glitterbean Cafe (above). An extended lockout is not how any supervisor would like to start a new school year, but it is wonderful to see the fellowship and mentorship that can happen without a professor driving things, too. I finally got to meet Bethany and Anna in person, both new MES students (though I had also briefly met Bethany at CAG last year), and see Chris (new PhD) and Elson (new PDF) who I have already spent plenty of time with. Alex and Keahna, who set up the student meeting, also came along to the picket line. I also had a great chance to finally meet Maria in person: she is the Dal AC grad who is in transition to a PhD at the University of Tasmania and who has been providing research support on my Australian repeat photography dataset from last year.
Me and RA Maria post-picket
Seeing these young scholars is just another great reminder for all, hopefully including the Dalhousie Board, just what Dalhousie is for. I’m looking very forward to soon getting back to the work I love.
Panelists and UNBSJ student organizers for the Climate Change Science and Action Panel on Mar 20 in Saint John.
On March 16th, this blog turned ten years old, and that feels like something to celebrate. But I’ve been a bit remiss on content so far this year. Last week’s visit to UNBSJ at the invitation of the Biological Sciences PhD student organization is a great prompt to remedy that. I joined a panel on Climate Change Science and Action with Moe Qureshi of the Conservation Council of NB and Helen Gurney-Smith of DFO in St. Andrews to talk across scales from global to local. The 2 hour discussion was followed up by a great networking event at the Haven Music Hall where I got to meet more of the students, some local partners and professors. Thanks to the organizers for the great event.
Earlier this term I also enjoyed meeting with the Local Government Group of the Green Shores program, a Maritimes outpost of the program originally developed by the Stewardship Council of BC run out of TransCoastal Adaptations at SMU. During that online presentation I learned that in December Green Shores developed an 8-page publication for the general public based on the final report from the NRCan project Making Room for Movement and the paper I led last year on Reimagining nature-based coastal adaptation using the 5Rs (reimagine, reserve, relocate, restore, reinforce), published in the Journal of Flood Risk Management. The policy brief, Green Shores and the 5Rs for Nature-based Coastal Adaptation , shows how Green Shores is operationalizing the framework we outlined. More recently I reprised my presentation to Green Shores to the TransCoastal Adaptations Lesson of the Week group.
Presenting to the Green Shores Local Government Group on Jan 15, 2024.
Other key events in recent months have been profile-raising events for SRES within Dalhousie, including the Graduate Fair (in person and online) in early February, the Sustainable Development Goals Expo in early March, and today’s engagement event with Black and African Nova Scotian high schoolers.
When nominated into the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, one is asked to say how they will contribute to the College. During my nomination I pitched an idea for a new Interdisciplinary Research Group (IRG) on quantitative social science research policy and data infrastructure (including survey and social media methods). With the support of a few fellow members (Mark Stoddart, Karen Foster and Elizabeth Dubois) that IRG has just been provisionally approved. Now we are looking for additional members, and writing a funding application to staff some empirical work to support it. Please get in touch with me if you are an RSC College member who is interested to hear more. A brief description follows:
Ask Canada: Toward robust data infrastructure and policy settings for quantitative social science in Canada
The landscape of quantitative social science research methods in Canada is a chaotic mix of practices and proxies both poorly understood at a system level and poorly equipped to support replicable research. This includes inadequate social science data infrastructure, inattention to policy settings to support empirical methods, and typically (bar a few fee-for-service labs) small, atomized academic teams that experience significant transaction costs in using them. Declining survey response rates drive many to work with polling firms or online modes of distribution that may compromise data quality and generalizability of insight. The UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science highlights the need to “[invest] in open science infrastructures and services”, but there is an ongoing tension globally—recognized by SDG 16 in relation to strong institutions—between high-quality, inclusive and representative data to inform decision-making and adequate protection of privacy. Open government initiatives are improving in line with global initiatives for default-open practices but Canada has thus far been focused on data repositories and access to government data and research, rather than supporting academic-led research. In fact, academic research is explicitly prohibited from accessing some resources (e.g. electoral rolls) that in comparable jurisdictions are available to their social scientists upon application. A piecemeal set of alliances and networks exist in Canada to support various aspects of social science but leave gaps in the support of quantitative social methods. This IRG will undertake literature review, expert methods, workshops and/or public surveys. By its end we will synthesize the state of quantitative social science in Canada, widely mobilize knowledge about best practices and trade-offs, and make recommendations for social science data infrastructure and public policy to foster quantitative social science research for the public interest.
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