Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
7.3 Research Results from the Local Climate Change
Visioning Process
The issues described above have been explored in a unique research programme
conducted over several years by researchers and partners that were coordinated by
the Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP) at the University of
British Columbia. Researchers worked as a trans-disciplinary team involving cli-
mate scientists, social scientists, planners, landscape architects, engineers, agency
staff and stakeholder representatives in British Columbia and other locations in
Canada. The goal was to develop a new approach that bridges the gap between
global climate science and the local level, using realistic landscape imagery of
alternative climate futures at the neighbourhood scale.
This body of Canadian research appears to be unique in combining the fol-
lowing attributes:
• Applying landscape visualization systematically to future climate change sce-
narios in real, specific locations.
• Drawing on hybrid modelling, climate change projections, spatial analysis, other
locally available data, and local stakeholder opinion to develop scenarios,
mapping, and 3D visualisations.
• Developing holistic alternative scenarios which addressed both adaptation,
mitigation, and current land use trends.
• Embedding visualisation within a structured participatory process involving
multiple stakeholders.
• Evaluation of the process, products, and their impacts on users such as com-
munity members, practitioners, and decision-makers.
• A sustained, coherent body of work conducted over the last decade in geo-
graphically diverse locations.
In reviewing a range of other scenario 'visioning' approaches, Sheppard (
2012
)
describes various precedents that incorporate one or sometimes more of these
attributes, but none that combine them all. The five case study processes described
below all involved government partners from the Federal to the local levels,
developed multi-stakeholder working groups, and were conducted by researchers
from five universities across the continent. The range of environments and types of
communities studied (including mild temperate coastal cities, a dry interior rural
community, a major metropolitan centre, and a remote arctic hamlet), suggest that
the findings apply to local level planning and community engagement in many
regions and settlement types in North America and potentially beyond.
This section summarizes the approach and key findings of the Local Climate
Change Visioning (LCCV) process, focusing particularly on the results of effec-
tiveness evaluations on the early case studies carried out in the Metro Vancouver
region, and contextualized through a brief review of more recent outcomes of
related studies across Canada.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search