Climate change to test mountain communities
Editor's Note: While climate change is on the radar for most us, mountain communities will be among the first to feel challenged by its affects. In this article, Kevin Hanna (Director for the Centre for Environmental Assessment Research at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan) writes about how mountain people are at the gates of climate change and how resilience and adaptation will be necessary to understand the risks and actions required to maintain a successful community.
This article first appeared in the ACC's 2018 State of the Mountains Report. We'll continue to publish articles exploring the science on our current state of Canada's alpine on our blog throughout the year. Find them all here.
Willoughby Ridge in 2015, regenerating after the 2003 Lost Creek Fire,
Crowsnest Pass. Photo: Mary Sanseverino.
It would be difficult to underestimate the impact that climate change will have on mountain regions. The vulnerability of mountain landscapes and the people that rely on them for their livelihoods has been highlighted as a distinct area of concern in international development, and noted for special recognition in international efforts to combat climate change.¹
As other chapters in the 2018 State of the Mountains Report show, Canada’s mountain regions will hardly be immune from the impacts of climate change. For high country communities this means that adaptation and resilience will become key parts of responding to new climate uncertainties and the disturbances that will accompany them.
What will Climate Change Look Like?
It can be hard to predict what a new climate reality will look like. While there is broad scientific consensus that climate change is a reality, the changes it will bring to specific places are difficult to predict with great accuracy. But we increasingly understand general trends and probable outcomes and this information can help. We know that Canada’s glaciers and ice fields will shrink and some will even vanish, snow and rain levels and patterns will change—likely declining over time for many regions—and severe weather events will be more frequent and more powerful. But almost half the world’s population relies on mountain water, and in western Canada hydropower depends on mountain water sources, as do most of its cities and towns.
Houses damaged along the edge of Cougar Creek in Canmore, Alberta. Widespread flooding caused by torrential rains washed out bridges and roads prompting the evacuation of thousands in June 2013. Photo: Jack Borno.
Drier conditions will also change forested landscapes. British Columbia’s 2017 fire season was the worst since the 1950s. Across the Coastal ranges, the Rockies, and the Kootenays the mountains were rarely seen for weeks; not because they were shrouded in mist or cloud, but in wood smoke. Tourism, travel and health were affected, but 2017 may be a harbinger for summers to come.
Many parts of society have become increasingly disconnected from each other and the environment.² But mountain communities rarely forget that their economies and cultures are profoundly intertwined with nature.
Community Resilience & Adaptation
Resilience starts from the understanding that humans and nature are linked in one social-ecological system. It is concerned with how humans and nature can use shocks and disruptions like climate change, or even an economic crisis, to generate renewal and innovation.²
Adaptation is about putting resilience into practice. Adaptation is strategic and action oriented—it encompasses the activities that help reduce and mitigate the negative impacts of climate change.³ On the ground, this means building infrastructure that anticipates the hazards of severe flooding, drought, new avalanche dynamics, rock and mudslides, and forest fires. Adaptation requires that a community invest in making the systems that provide transportation, freshwater, waste management, and social services more resilient. It is also identifying those parts of a local economy that will be most affected and deciding what changes need to be made, or indeed if it will need to be wholly reimagined.
For Canada’s mountain communities—many of which are dependant on vulnerable sectors such as tourism, forestry and agriculture— climate change will bring adaptation challenges best met with early acknowledgement and planning. Resilience will require information and knowledge, and will involve building community adaptation literacy to understand the risks and actions needed for endurance and success. Forewarned is forearmed.
Key References:
[1] Egan, P.A. & Price, M. F. (2017). Mountain ecosystem services and climate change: a global overview of potential threats and strategies for adaptation. Paris: UNESCO.
[2] Stockholm Resilience Institute (SRI). (2017). What is resilience? An introduction to a popular yet often misunderstood concept. Retrieved from http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2015-02-19-what-is-resilience.html
[3] National Municipal Adaptation Project (NMAP) (2014). Canada: Results from the national municipal adaptation survey. Kelowna: Center for Environmental Assessment Research at UBC.