High-Resolution Climate Projections for Municipal Risk Assessment and Resilience Planning

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The goals of the partnership are to support the City of Edmonton's Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Strategy by providing projections of the future climate at high spatial and temporal resolution, and an analysis of uncertainty, to assist planners, engineers, managers and policy makers with decision-making for an uncertain future. Our partners at the City of Edmonton are implementing an ambitious climate change adaptation and resilience strategy that requires the type of scientific information provided by the proposed project. From a range of climate model projections, we will identify climate risks to municipal assets and public services in terms of the probability and consequences of exceeding critical thresholds in weather and water variables. We will provide guidelines for translating the climate projections and uncertainties for engineering and planning applications. We will analyze sources uncertainty to interpret and explain differences among climate projections. By running a hydrological model with the projected climate, we will generate data on climate driven changes in river levels and stormwater runoff. Our tree-ring records from across western and northern Alberta are a unique record of the pre-industrial climate and hydrology. We will compare a 900-year record of the regional hydroclimate to climate model projections and thereby determine the extent to which the future climate of Edmonton will be outside the range of natural climate cycles. By exploring the full range of climatic variability, we will supply data and knowledge to limit climate risks and inform decision making to achieve a resilient urban community. The proposed research fills a knowledge gap in terms of the scale and type of data and information required to develop and implement adaptation plans for Canadian cities, with Edmonton as the case study.