Biography

Dr. Daniel Lane is Full Professor, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa. His research interests include decision-making, simulation modelling and control of dynamic systems, especially in the area of adaptation to climate change, and management of including fisheries, aquaculture, and oceans policy analysis.

Article Title

Coastal Community Adaptation Profiling

Abstract

This paper presents the analyses behind profiling coastal communities as part of the C-Change International Community University research Alliance (ICURA) project entitled “Managing Adaptation to Environmental Change in Coastal Communities: Canada and the Caribbean”. Community profiling is a fundamental step in the description of selected coastal communities that are threatened in the short term by more frequent and severe storms and flooding from storm surge, and in the longer term, by the impacts of rising sea levels. Community profiling begins with a description of the ‘community pillars’, namely, the Environmental, Economic, Cultural, and Social descriptors of the coastal community, and presented as layers in a Geographical Information System (GIS) through the use of geo-referenced photo-documentation of the community’s coastal zone. Each pillar is itemized by specific data elements that are used to determine an estimate of total community assets by pillar. The coastal community’s Total Assets evaluation profile is then used in the determination of community vulnerabilities and estimated damages from the geographical impacts on the coastal community of historical severe storms, storm surge, and sea level rise. Identified vulnerabilities are used to estimate the community’s Total Assets At Risk from modeled future storms. Finally, estimated community Storm Damage is determined using incidences of historical and modeled severe storms via a system dynamics model of storm impacts dynamics on coastal resources and population. This information is compiled into the Coastal Community Profile Report. The Community Profile Reports raises community awareness of storm impacts, summarizes the state of knowledge on existing conditions, provides the list of vulnerable community elements, and begins the discussion on prioritizing vulnerable components, development of opportunities to avoid, to adapt to, or to recover from storm impacts. Examples of Community Profile Reports are presented for Charlottetown and Isle Madame, selected C-Change coastal communities in Canada.

Article Title

Analyses of the Vulnerability of Coastal Communities to Environmental Change

Abstract

Globally, coastal communities are experiencing climate change impacts from melting of sea ice, thermal expansion, permafrost thawing, and coastal erosion resulting in inevitable rise in sea levels, and more frequent severe storms. This paper analyses the vulnerability of selected coastal communities in Canada and the Caribbean region as part of the C-Change International Community University research Alliance (ICURA) project entitled “Managing Adaptation to Environmental Change in Coastal Communities: Canada and the Caribbean”. The Atlantic region of Canada is subject to impacts from a wide range of interannual and seasonal events such as tropical hurricanes, winter cyclonic storms, and flooding. During the past 15 years, storm surges have caused significant damage in all of the Atlantic Provinces. In this paper, vulnerability indices are presented to help guide policy development on vulnerability reduction at national and local scales, and serve as a means of measuring progress toward the specific goals of raising awareness of coastal threats, and taking strategic action to address storm impacts. While most vulnerability indicators are aggregate and comparative global context measures that are useful mainly for relative comparison, this paper defines vulnerability as a local multi-dimensional concept that takes into account the priorities of the participants from the local community in a multiple criteria evaluation. Vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity measures are conceived as a consequence of the prioritized evaluation of the multiple criteria evaluation of adaptation strategies applied to specific contexts in the local coastal community. Vulnerability analyses indicator values are developed for examples from C-Change Canadian coastal communities.

Article Title

Decision Making for Adaptation to Environmental Change in Coastal Communities

Abstract

Small islands and coastal communities around the world are very vulnerable to climate change impacts that are realized in more frequent severe storms, storm surges, and inevitable sea-level rise. Coastal hazards include inundation, salinisation of the water supply, and coastal erosion that threaten vital infrastructure that built environments critical to coastal communities’ populations. This research, part of the C-Change International Community-University Research Alliance (ICURA) project, “Managing Adaptation to Environmental Change in Coastal Communities: Canada and the Caribbean” develops a multicriteria decision evaluation and support for evaluating adaptation options for coastal communities in the context of preparing for the impacts of severe storms. This paper applies estimates of the vulnerability and estimates of storm damage to coastal communities from Community Profile Reports with respect to communities’ environmental, economic, social, and cultural dimensions and their prioritized valuations by the community participants, including local (municipal) governments, industry, the service sector, and community members. The purpose of this paper is to describe the application of the multi-participant community formulation of an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) model for evaluating and ranking specific adaptation strategies in well-defined community projects characterized by options to: (i) provide ultimate protection from the environmental threats; (ii) defend the community from the storm threats; and (iii) retreat in the face of the pending storm impacts. The application of the framework is conducted for C-Change coastal communities in Canada. For example, the state of the failing breakwater in the village of Little Anse on Isle Madame is analyzed and adaptation options for attacking, defending, and retreating are presented and evaluated using the multi-participant community AHP model.