Articles tagged with: meopar

  • MEOPAR BLOG: Call for Photographs

    Wednesday, September 18, 2019 | By

    CALL FOR PHOTOS EXTENDED

    We have discussed what climate change is and the importance of adapting to the environmental changes occurring and anticipated. But how can we be sure that some of these changes are truly a result of climate change? MEOPAR team member Meredith DeCock is hoping to demonstrate just that with her master’s thesis.

    Brock University Master of Sustainability Science and Society Candidate, Meredith DeCock is conducting an analysis of the Lincoln shoreline of Lake Ontario to see how it has changed since the 1930’s. As part of her research project, she is asking for help from the community. She is interested in acquiring electronic copies of historical photographs anyone may have of the shoreline to help visualize how it has changed over time. Photographs are important visuals in climate change research to help tell the story over time. It is a way of sharing your local knowledge and contributing to the research project.

    Don’t miss out on an opportunity to participate in a local research project!

    Photos are now being accepted until October 31, 2019. 

    Find out more information on the project and how to submit your photographs here.
    *Please remember to sign a waiver (found at the web address above) and submit it with your photograph(s)*

    Continue to monitor this page to read new blog posts every week. 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 lvasseur@brocku.ca@brocku.ca

     

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    Categories: MEOPAR-Lincoln Blog, Updates of the Chair

  • MEOPAR Blog: Mitigation will not be enough: we need to adapt

    Wednesday, September 18, 2019 | By

    Flood waters rise up to the Niagara Rowing School and Paddlesport Centre at the Jordan Harbour Conservation Area, June 2019.

    What is adaptation and why is it important?

    The top scientists around the globe know our climate is changing at a faster rate than Earth has ever experienced—largely as a result of the actions taken by humans since the industrial revolution. This is resulting in changes to the Earth’s natural processes, including our climate, and action needs to be taken to slow down and deal with these changes.

    These actions can take on two different forms: mitigation or adaptation. Mitigation refers to actions taken to slow down climate changes, mainly targeted at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, for example. Adaptation, on the other hand, goes even further: acknowledging that even if we halted 100% of all emissions right now, we will still inevitably see some of the effects of climate change for decades. Adaptation means preparing for the inevitability of these changes by engaging in actions or strategies to better respond to the risks of climate change. Strategies may be either reactive (drying out your basement and preventing mould after you’re have been flooded) or proactive (relocating entirely because your house is getting too close to the shoreline).

    Adaptation actions may include:

    • flood prevention
    • relocation
    • land use changes
    • health programs
    • restoration of shorelines and forests
    • smart building design

    To successfully tackle the complex challenge of climate change, a combination of mitigation and adaptation efforts need to be prioritized by everyone: from federal to municipal governments, as well as local agencies, businesses and community members. Using the Town of Lincoln as a case study, the MEOPAR-Lincoln research project focuses on how communities can adapt to changing environmental conditions, and what will ultimately motivate citizens to get involved and start moving into action.

    A wide range of community voices will be needed to complete this study, as there will be a wide range of impacts to be addressed and strategies to be examined.

    Continue to monitor this page to read new blog posts every week. 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 lvasseur@brocku.ca@brocku.ca

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    Categories: MEOPAR-Lincoln Blog, Updates of the Chair

  • MEOPAR Blog: Mitigation, A fancy way to say “Reduce the use of fossil fuels!”

    Wednesday, September 18, 2019 | By

    Flooding under the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) leads to partial closures of Charles Daley Park, Spring 2019.

    How much do you like driving your car or turning up the heat in your home on a frigid winter day? How often are you awake long after the sun has gone down, relying on the flick of a light switch in order to go about your evening routine? While many of these things are considered a common part of life, have you ever wondered where the energy comes from to do everything that we often take for granted?

    Many of the modern conveniences we rely on every day require the use of natural gas or gasoline—both of which emit a lot of greenhouse gases. The more of these gases that get pumped into the air, the greater the impact to our climate and our overall health and well-being. As convenient as it is to jump in our cars and zip from Point A to Point B, the ozone emitted by those cars creates smog that causes major health issues, like asthma and cancer, prompts our government to issue air quality advisories and cautions us from spending too much time outdoors.

    So, what can we do?

    We can start by committing to making a few, little lifestyle changes today. If we want future generations to enjoy life the way that we have, spending time outdoors engaging in Canadian summer pastimes like hiking and boating, we can’t afford to wait.

    A good place to start is by having open, honest and intergenerational discussions about our consumption patterns and over-use of resources. Think about whether your next potential purchase is a want or a need, for example. Do you really need a new car or a new cell phone, or do you just want to keep up with the latest update and features and your current device still does the trick? Do you need a new house of several thousand square feet for only two people, or, would a more modest dwelling suffice? If your initial response is that yes, you need it, then ask yourself why? While it’s nice to have the newest technology or an extra bedroom or two in our home, these material possessions and status symbols won’t be worth much when our forests and waterways are gone and there’s no clean air to breathe.

    It doesn’t have to happen all at once and no one is expecting you to relinquish all your possessions and decide to stop driving your car overnight. However, we all need to commit to doing our small part to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions now before it’s too late. It won’t be easy, and we’ll all need to put in the work because it’s not only up to governments to do something—we are all responsible for making changes. Even if we can only commit to small, incremental changes at first.

    It’s time to rethink the future we want and the steps we can take to mitigate the impacts of climate change. We have to do this only for us, but also for our children, our grandchildren, and all other future generations on this planet we share.

    Continue to monitor this page to read new blog posts every week. 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 lvasseur@brocku.ca

     

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    Categories: MEOPAR-Lincoln Blog, Updates of the Chair

  • MEOPAR Blog: What is the MEOPAR – Lincoln project?

    Monday, August 12, 2019 | By

    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

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    Categories: MEOPAR-Lincoln Blog, Updates of the Chair

  • Indicators point toward worse Great Lakes flooding than 2017

    Monday, May 06, 2019 | By

    The Town of Lincoln sustained nearly $1 million in damage from spring storms in 2017.

    From: The Brock News, Thursday, May 2
    By: Dan Dakin

    Record-high lake levels led to devastating flood damage in Great Lakes coastal communities in 2017, but in the two years since, little has changed.

    Brock University Professor of Biology and UNESCO Chair in Community Sustainability Liette Vasseur said those communities are in for serious flooding this year.

    And she says despite knowing it was coming, our complacency as a society has meant that we’re not only ill-prepared, but we’ve made things worse on ourselves.

    “The pragmatism people have is that it’s all about today. Nobody thinks about the future,” she said. “We knew this was going to happen. All the signs were there.”

    Vasseur is an internationally recognized expert in the field of coastal flooding and climate change adaptation and is currently leading a research project examining the impacts of the 2017 flooding and what could have been done to change the outcomes.

    She’s been carefully watching the rising lake levels and said Lake Erie, for example, hit a record high in late April.

    Vasseur said the explanation can be found in a number of areas such as the control level plan for the Great Lakes and heavy snowfall and spring rainfall for some regions, but she said the decisions of municipalities and residents are having a major impact.

    “There are climate drivers, but what doesn’t help is the fact that people are building close to rivers and lakes,” she said. “These are dynamic systems. The human component is very important. You remove wetlands and pave over other areas so with heavy rainfall, the water has to go somewhere else.”

    Vasseur said even after the devastating floods two years ago, municipalities have continued to allow projects to be built in these sensitive areas.

    “It’s quite obvious to me that we didn’t learn the lessons,” she said.

    Vasseur’s recommendation is for residents living near coastlines to invest in waterproofing measures, and for municipalities to start creating buffer zones along rivers and lakes. Adaptation measures are badly needed. For some, it may even be to move from their residence, she said.

    While those steps won’t stop the effects of climate change, they will at least help to lessen the impact on communities and infrastructure.

    “We need to start bringing more of the natural components that can help with these storms like recreating wetlands and marshes,” she said.

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    Categories: Updates of the Chair

  • Marine Environmental Observation Prediction and Response Network (MEOPAR)- Lincoln Community Sustainability Project Update

    Tuesday, March 19, 2019 | By

    Thank you to everyone who attended our presentation to the Town of Lincoln at the council meeting last night (Tuesday, March 19).

    At the meeting, Dr. Liette Vasseur, Dr. Bradley May and Masters Candidate Meredith DeCock, all of Brock University, provided an update on the Marine Environmental Observation Prediction and Response Network (MEOPAR)- Lincoln Community Sustainability Project to date.

    Missed the event?

    View the presentation notes

    View the meeting agenda

    View a recording of the meeting 
    *Videos are uploaded by the Town of Lincoln following the meetings

    Visit the project Facebook page 

     

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    Categories: Updates of the Chair

  • Brock researchers to introduce coastal research project to Lincoln residents and stakeholders

    Wednesday, November 21, 2018 | By

    A research project examining how coastal communities can deal with the impacts of climate change will formally launch in the Town of Lincoln this week.

    The town suffered around $1 million in damage as a result of back-to-back spring storms in 2017 that caused massive flooding from Lake Ontario. Announced in May, Brock University Professor and UNESCO Chair in Community Sustainability Liette Vasseur is leading a three-year research study that will focus on Lincoln as the Ontario component of a wider project by Université du Québec à Rimouski.

    The local research is being funded through a $280,000 grant from the Marine Environmental Observation Prediction and Response Network (MEOPAR) with additional support from the Town of Lincoln and Brock.

    The Lincoln research will officially be launched on Thursday, Nov. 29 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the Fleming Centre in Beamsville. Interested residents and land owners will be able to meet Vasseur and her research team and learn more about how they can participate in the project. There will also be a short discussion to learn more about the experiences of those in attendance around climate change and extreme weather events in the town.

    “Our strong partnership with Brock enables these types of on-the-ground research opportunities, informing and providing evidence-based decisions for our community,” said Town of Lincoln CAO Michael Kirkopoulos.

    Vasseur said she hopes the end result of the research will be sustainable options for the future such as how to help slow down and prevent shoreline erosion or any other impacts on the town.

    “With this project, we want to help the community and the town contribute to solutions and strategies to adapt to climate change,” she said.

    What: MEOPAR Town of Lincoln Research Project Launch

    When: Thursday, Nov. 29, 6:30 to 8 p.m.

    Where: Fleming Centre, Room A, 5020 Serena Dr., Beamsville

    Who: Open to all

     

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    Categories: Updates of the Chair