Eric Rapaport

Community Adaptation to Climate Change: Environmental Planners' Knowledge and Experiences in British Columbia, Canada

Adaptation has lagged behind mitigation in climate change research and action, and there are currently few examples of proactive community adaptation plans in Canada or around the world. However, adaptation is being increasingly recognized as a necessary action to respond to changes in the climate as societies concurrently mitigate to minimize future anthropogenic climatic forcing. Environmental planners will play a leading role in assisting communities as they face the challenge of preparing for a changing and uncertain future. This research uses a self-assessment survey and workshop to provide a perspective of planner knowledge of climate change adaptation. It also explores climate impacts in communities across the province of British Columbia, Canada, and barriers to effective adaptation. The results indicate that planners do not have a high level of knowledge regarding climate change adaptation. The top impacts that planners believe will affect British Columbia are related to forests, agriculture and river flooding. Planners want adaptation incorporated into existing documents (such as community, regional and provincial plans) rather than separate adaptation plans. The findings of this study demonstrate the need to promote capacity building related to climate change adaptation among planners.

Community Innovation in the Soft Spaces of Planning

Adopting the distinction between hard and spaces of governance, this paper explores the nature and extent of integrated planning within the governance spaces of northern British Columbia and the extent to which the systems in place support innovative practices on the ground. Drawing on research undertaken in two rural settlements, the study reveals limited integration in formal planning structures and processes but an increasing recognition of the need for collaboration across boundaries in new and dynamic arenas. Soft spaces have created opportunities for local communities to be innovative in their quest for a more sustainable future, and these findings highlight a potential role for communities in securing integrated planning, not as invited participants in planning processes but as leaders or promoters of cross-sectoral initiatives.

Using expert knowledge effectively: Lessons from species distribution models for wildlife conservation and management

The spatial and temporal relationships between organisms and their environments are fundamental to both theoretical and applied ecology. The heterogeneous distribution of organisms in space and time will influence most ecological relationships, including predation, competition, and resource use, and, ultimately, population dynamics and evolution (Turchin 1996). Recognizing that the science and practice of ecology involves a consideration of spatial processes, much recent research has focused on formally representing and quantifying the spatial and temporal relationships between organisms and their environments (Morales et al. 2010). One prominent area of investigation for landscape ecologists has been the development of statistical models and associated analyses that empirically represent those relationships (Elith and Leathwick 2009). This set of methods has become known as “species distribution models” (SDMs). Guisan and Thuiller (2005) define SDMs as “… empirical models relating field observations to environmental predictor variables, based on statistically or theoretically derived response surfaces.”