View from the mouth of Sixteen Mile Creek, looking North towards Lake Ontario. July 2019.
November 2018 marked the launch of the new MEOPAR-Lincoln Community Sustainability Project in the Town of Lincoln. Although the study is now approaching the one-year mark, there may still be uncertainty about what it is, and how it will help you and your community deal with the impacts of severe weather and environmental changes.
That’s why we, the researchers involved in the project, have launched this weekly blog series to educate the public on the work we are doing and the ways they can get involved.
The study launched in November 2018, one year after two back-to-back storms in Lincoln caused massive flooding and prompted the Town’s first-ever voluntary evacuation order for residents living along the Lake Ontario shoreline.The study is a joint venture between Brock University, The Town of Lincoln and the Marine Environmental Observation Prediction and Response Centre (MEOPAR).
Based at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, MEOPAR is federally funded through the Network of Centres of Excellence and supports interdisciplinary research and development in Canadian universities, provides training to students, and helps mobilize the knowledge gained by research to communities and institutions across Canada.The project in Lincoln is part of a larger one that also includes multiple communities in Quebec. Steve Plante, of the Université du Québec à Rimouski, is the principal investigator in Quebec and Brock University’s Liette Vasseur is the investigator for the Ontario portion. The goal here in Niagara is to support the community of Lincoln as it defines and acts on climate and environmental changes that may affect its development in the future.
How do we plan to do this? The first step was to create a profile of the town (which will be available online soon), and to interview residents in Lincoln as well as staff at the Town and the Niagara Region. With a better idea of where we’re starting from, the next steps will come this summer and fall, when we will be establishing working groups to examine the specific climate-related issues that people are facing. We will also discuss possible solutions and strategies to reduce the risks associated with changing climate and environmental conditions.
The project is meant to be very participative and iterative. We hope that everyone can participate and gain a better understanding of the various aspects of climate change, ways to adapt and to be better prepared now, and in the future.Stay tuned to our weekly blog posts that will cover the goals and progress of the study, how to get involved, and broader discussion about climate change and its impacts on not just the Town of Lincoln, but the entire Niagara region.
Continue to monitor this page to read new blog posts every Tuesday. These posts are written by the MEOPAR Research Team, comprised of Liette Vasseur, Meredith DeCock, Bradley May and Alex Marino. For more information about the project, contact us using this form, or, via email at meopar-lincoln@brocku.ca
