My research on dykelands began with my SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2012-2015) on farm wetlands. I used those funds to explore public perceptions of Acadian dykelands in the face of climate change using a large-scale online Q-methodology survey, the pilot for which was partially supported by the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture (NSDA) in 2014. Factor analysis revealed four discrete discourses related to the management of Nova Scotia dykes and dykelands, and an understanding of what personal variables predict an adaptive (rather than mitigative) perspective (Sherren et al., 2016). Collaboration in 2015 found parallels with the drained agricultural land in the Po Delta, Italy, based on research in the lab of Davide Viaggi, University of Bologna, which produced a conference paper (Targetti et al. 2016).
Dykeland work has continued with new collaborations with Dr Danika van Proosdij, Saint Mary’s University, and her TransCoastal Adaptations network. Echoing landmark recent Dutch climate adaptation programs such as Making Space for Water and Room for the River, Making Room for Movement is layering environmental social science and planning research onto that restoration work, as well as looking beyond to look at a wider set of nature-based coastal adaptation options, including managed dyke realignment, coastal retreat and natural shorelines. A contract with the OECD led to us producing the Canadian chapter for a 2019 OECD report, Responding to Rising Seas, based on a dyke realignment project underway in Truro, NS (Sherren et al. 2019; Rahman et al. 2019); a workshop on the lessons was well-attended.
I then pitched dykelands as one of six landscape case studies nationally in a new NSERC Strategic Partnership Grant for Networks, ResNet, led by Elena Bennett at McGill. Co-leading the dykeland landscape case with Jeremy Lundholm, a plant ecologist from SMU with close links to the van Proosdij lab, we are wrapping a 5-year research programme around the decisions facing the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture as they decide how to modernize the dykeland system in the province. We will use ecosystem services as an organizing framework to work across and between disciplines to understand how to resolve contentious production landscape decisions (Sherren et al. 2021). With a great team, we will start with a few years of primary data collection to fill gaps in our knowledge of ecosystem service delivery and beneficiaries of dykelands and wetlands in Nova Scotia. Later stages will include synthesis through scenarios and modeling.
Papers and chapters
Cotton, I., McWherter, B., Tenbrink, T. and Sherren, K. 2024. Comparing thematic and search term-based coding in understanding sense of place in survey research. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 102339
Zhao, Q., Chen, Y., Gone, K. P., Wells, E., Margeson, K., and Sherren, K. 2023. Modelling cultural ecosystem services in agricultural dykelands and tidal wetlands to inform coastal infrastructure decisions: A social media data approach. Marine Policy, 150, 105533.
Sherren, K., Ellis, K., Guimond, J. A., Kurylyk, B., LeRoux, N., Lundholm, J., Mallory, M.L., van Proosdij, D., Walker, A., Bowron, T., Brazner, J., Kellman, L., Turner II, B.L., Wells, E. 2021. Understanding multifunctional Bay of Fundy dykelands and tidal wetlands using ecosystem services—a baseline. Facets, 6: 1446–1473.
Chen, Y., Caesemaecker, C., Rahman, H.M.T. and Sherren, K. 2020. Comparing cultural ecosystem service delivery in dykelands and marshes using Instagram: A case of the Cornwallis (Jijuktu’kwejk) River, Nova Scotia, Canada. Ocean and Coastal Management, 193, 105254.
Rahman, H. M. Tuihedur, Sherren, K. and van Proosdij, D. 2019. Institutional Innovation for Nature-Based Coastal Adaptation: Lessons from Salt Marsh Restoration in Nova Scotia, Canada. Sustainability, 11 (23), 6735.
Sherren, K., Bowron, T., Graham, J. M., Rahman, H. M. Tuihedur and van Proosdij, D. 2019. Coastal infrastructure realignment and salt marsh restoration in Nova Scotia, Canada. Responding to Rising Seas: Comparing OECD Countries’ Approaches to Coastal Adaptation, Lisa Danielson Ed. (Organization for Economic Collaboration and Development: Paris, France).
Sherren, K., Loik, L and Debner, J.. 2016. Climate adaptation in ‘new world’ cultural agricultural landscapes: the case of Bay of Fundy dykelands (Nova Scotia, Canada). Land Use Policy, 51, 267-280.
Presentations
Sherren, K., Champagne, B., Chen, Y., Cornejo, L., Cotton, I., Howard, S., Movaghati Nashta, P., Pictou, K., Wells, E., van Proosdij, D. and Zhao, Q. (2023) The social dimensions of managed realignment of agricultural dykes and restoration of tidal wetlands on the Bay of Fundy coast. Managed Retreat Conference, Columbia, NY, June 2023 (online presentation, starts at minute 42 on this YouTube video).
Reports
Galang, Elson Ian Nyl Ebreo, Lara Cornejo, Kate Sherren, Elena Bennett, Jeremy Lundholm, Gordon Hickey, Emily Hodgson, Keahna Margeson, Paria Nashta, Polly Nguyen. 2023. Envisioning Environmental Futures for the Tidal Wetlands and Dykelands of the Bay of Fundy. NSERC ResNet report. [Conversation article based on this work]
James, Patrick; Cornejo, Lara, 2023, Understanding ecosystem service impacts of tidal wetlands after managed dyke realignment through causal loop diagrams, NSERC ResNet report. https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/M0RA9Z, Borealis, V1
Zhao, Qiqi; Cornejo, Lara; Manning, Paul; Sherren, Kate, 2023, Biodiversity in the Bay of Fundy dykelands: Insights from citizen science data, NSERC ResNet report. https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/QTUQDV, Borealis, V1
Policy briefs
Endresz, K. 2020. Understanding the ecological linkages between salt marsh ecosystems and nearshore fisheries
Champagne, B. 2021. The Future of Nova Scotia’s Dykelands: Understanding The Landowner Perspective
Wells, E. 2023. Mi’kmaw lessons for adaptation in Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy
Howard, S. 2023. Understanding psychological drivers of attitudes towards managed dyke realignment in the Minas Basin, Nova Scotia
Cotton, I. 2023. Exploring sense of place around the Minas Basin.
Conference presentations
Targetti, S., Sherren, K., Raggi, M. and Viaggi, D. 2016. Contrasting perceptions of anthropogenic coastal agricultural landscape meanings and management in Italy and Canada. 19 April, 2016, Interdisciplinary Approaches in Climatic Change Research and Assessment session, European Geographical Union General Assembly, Vienna, AU.
Research trainees
Alexandre Legault is an MREM working as an RA and summer intern in 2024, working on cultural ecosystem services and diaspora services among Acadians.
Samantha Howard was an MES candidate, 2021-2023, working to understand (among other things) support for managed dyke realignment around the Minas Basin and its drivers.
Patrick James was an MREM intern in summer 2023, working with PDF Lara Cornejo to synthesize our understanding of ecosystem service delivery in Bay of Fundy dykelands and tidal wetlands using system dynamics.
Polly Nguyen was a knowledge mobilization intern for ResNet in the summer of 2022.
Qiqi Zhao was a visiting student from Nanjing, sponsored by the China Scholarship Council, working on cultural ecosystem service mapping and citizen science data, 2021-2.
Brandon Champagne was enrolled in an MA at SMU (I was a committee member) working on the dykeland landowner experience, and worked as an RA on the project as well.
Emily Wells joined ResNet as an MES in fall 2020, working on the Mi’kmaw dimensions of dykeland decision-making.
Kiana Endresz was an MMM intern with ResNet in the summer of 2020 working with John Brazner at NS Dept of Lands and Forestry and CBWES on fisheries implications of dyke realignment.
H. M. Tuihedur Rahman, PhD, joined our collaborative SMU/Dalhousie team in July 2018 as a postdoctoral fellow, straight from his PhD work at McGill with Dr. Gordon Hickey. He is jointly funded by NRCan and DFO through grants led by Danika van Proosdij.
Krysta Sutton joined the team in 2018 to undertake an MES on Making Room for Movement. She has co-developed the materials for 16 focus groups with coastal residents of Nova Scotia, undertaken by video conference call in June and July 2019, and will use the text-based data as the basis of her MES. She is funded by NRCan (as an RA) and an Ocean Frontiers Institute seed grant.
Logan Loik, MREM 2015, undertook the Q-method pilot research in the Annapolis Valley/Cornwallis River, co-funded by SSHRC and the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture to explore opportunities for managed realignment. He went from Dalhousie to being an energy efficiency Field Ambassador for the Summerhill Group.
