Forest Floor Mat Transplanting in Sudbury (2012)

2012

Since 1978, the City of Greater Sudbury, Ontario, has undertaken re-greening efforts to replace tree and vegetation cover on 82,000 ha that had been historically denuded by smelter emissions. To further these efforts, and protect the fragile new growth from anticipated climate change impacts, the City initiated a program to transplant forest floor mats from old growth forest areas scheduled for depletion to accommodate the widening of Highway 69, to the newly planted areas. The forest floor mats add plant and micro-organism diversity promoting healthy trees and help to protect the new vegetation from climate impacts such as extreme heat, wind or precipitation events.

The case study reviews the details of the program and highlights the challenges and lessons learned that have emerged from this endeavour.

Center for Climate Strategies Adaptation Guidebook: Comprehensive Climate Action

2012

This report provides a complete stepwise, fact based, sector-specific methodology on climate adaptation action planning and policy development. Through comprehensive climate action planning that includes adaptation, federal, state, regional, and local governments can anticipate, manage, and reduce the risks and impacts of climate change, as well as pursue opportunities for optimizing strong climate investments and policy making.

Bioretention Swale and Rain Gardens – Thunder Bay

2011

The City of Thunder Bay, Ontario developed a bioretention swale for its water treatment plant. This Low-Impact Development (LID) project uses vegetation to filter, slow, capture, and infiltrate stormwater before it reaches Lake Superior.

Bioretention Swale and Rain Gardens

Involving Homeowners in Urban Flood Risk Reduction: City of London, Ontario (2011)

2011

The City of London, Ontario has experienced many flooding events over the past few decades, often related to extreme precipitation events and seasonal thaw. Involving homeowners in adaptation strategies is a key factor in their success.

This case study developed by the Institute of Catastrophic Loss Reduction explores homeowner perceptions on basement flooding and the mitigative behaviours of residents in the Sherwood Forest neighbourhood of London, Ontario. The results of this study are provided and several recommendations, next steps, challenges and lessons learned were identified as well.

This case study can provide insight for municipalities into the challenges involved in engaging homeowners and residents in climate change  adaptation, and the best ways to achieve successful participation in municipal programs.

Climate Change Adaptation Planning: a Handbook for Small Canadian Communities

2011

The purpose of the Handbook is to help small Canadian communities to prepare and implement a Climate Change Adaptation Plan (CCAP). The Handbook helps community planners take the key steps required to plan for climate change adaptation and decision makers determine what strategic actions need to be taken.

Stormwater Strategies: Cities Prepare Aging Infrastructure for Climate Change

2011

Although managers typically think first of the effects on drinking water supplies, many are realizing that their wastewater systems (the focus of this article) also will be keenly affected, with profound potential consequences for public health. In many places, these systems are already under strain from population growth, development, underfunding, and maintenance backlogs. At a time when North American cities are just beginning to assess what altered weather patterns may bring, a handful, such as Toronto, have committed to upgrading their wastewater systems with climate change in mind.

AdaptME Toolkit: Adaptation Monitoring & Evaluation

2011

This toolkit will help you to: 1) refine your evaluation purpose and objectives, 2) reflect on what you are trying to evaluate and the logic behind it, 3) understand how specific traits of climate adaptation can make evaluation challenging and how you can overcome these challenges, 4) draw out, understand and re-evaluate your assumptions, 5) consider how progress and performance might be best measured and evaluated, 6) identify examples, good practice and techniques which may help ensure your evaluation is robust, 7) prioritize your evaluation activities.

Changing Climate, Changing Communities: Guide and Workbook for Municipal Climate Adaptation

2011

Changing Climate, Changing Communities: Guide and Workbook for Municipal Climate Adaptation is a compendium of resources that provide a milestone based framework to assist local governments in the creation of adaptation plans to address the relevant climate change impacts associated with their communities. Changing Climate, Changing Communities is aimed at municipal staff interested in working on climate change adaptation strategies.

Protecting your Community from Climate Change: a Training Program for Ontario Municipalities

2011

This course is intended to help municipalities and municipal departments take action to adapt to climate change. It builds on the experience of some local government leaders in the field, and includes links to reports of their efforts. It also draws on the important work of Canadian and international climate change scientists and adaptation researchers.

A Practitioners Guide to Climate Change Adaptation in Ontario’s Ecosystems

2011

This guide was developed to help practitioners respond to and prepare for climate change. It introduces the concepts of climate change adaptation, vulnerability, and risk. It also describes vulnerability and risk assessment tools and techniques, and a framework that can be used to support adaptive management in a rapidly changing climate. Ultimately, the guide seeks to assist natural resource managers to identify ways that climate change vulnerabilities and risks can be integrated into decision-making processes that include adaptation action plans, strategies, and policies.