Building Climate Resilient Communities: Living Within the Earth’s Carrying Capacity

This Knowledge Synthesis examines how Canadian communities can proactively advance climate resilience to effectively reduce the risk from climate change impacts. Our synthesis reveals that some communities have prepared high level adaptation plans, but very few have a detailed implementation strategy with established funding frameworks. Most actions to build community resilience in Canada are unplanned and take place in recovery following an extreme loss event. Indigenous communities are at the forefront of climate change adaptation in Canada. Self-determination and adaptive capacity building through community-led risk assessments, planning, and disaster recovery organizations, while addressing the broader context of reconciliation gaps and opportunities for integration, are important for climate resiliency. Combining Western and Indigenous ways of knowing for effective knowledge translation is necessary for adaptation. Indigenous collaborations that promote nature-based solutions and conservation are critical to global GHG sequestration and resilience. Local scale urban warming experienced by Canadian communities adds to the heat burden in the warm season and further exacerbates social, health and economic impacts. More research is needed to document and predict the occurrence of heatwaves and to develop heat adaptation strategies for Canadian cities. There are physical and mental health impacts of heatwaves and climate change. To address the climate crisis, a more ambitious, strategic and collaborative approach to adaptation is required. Proven tools exist to proactively improve climate resilience. A major issue is lack of funding and direction for governments and indigenous communities to address climate resilience. The executive summary of the full report provides key messages

ENV-639: IMPACT OF VEGETATION TYPE AND CLIMATE ON EVAPOTRANSPIRATION FROM EXTENSIVE GREEN ROOFS

Stormwater management solutions are needed to increase resiliency within urban areas by: (1) maintaining the natural hydrologic cycle, (2) controlling erosion and flooding, and (3) protecting water quality (MOE, 2003). Large impervious areas from urban development results in the loss of vegetated surfaces which leads to an increase in direct runoff (e.g. Paul and Meyer, 2008). Within urban areas, conventional roofs cover 40-50% of the impervious surfaces giving them significant potential to host urban stormwater management solutions (Dunnett and Kingsbury, 2004). Green roofs are able to restore the altered hydrologic cycle closer to its natural state by reducing the volume of runoff from a roof as well as attenuating flowrates. The hydrologic benefits of green roofs are partially attributed due to the vegetated surfaces enhancing evapotranspiration (ET) in urban areas. Predicting ET from green roofs is critical to inform green roof design and for optimization of hydrologic performance. This study focuses on evaluating the influence of green roof design parameters, such as vegetation type and growth media depth, on ET and by extension the hydrologic performance of an extensive green roof. While many studies have now demonstrated the effectiveness of green roofs in attenuating flowrate and reducing the volume of stormwater runoff (e.g., VanWoert et al., 2005a, Fassman-Beck et al., 2013, Berndtsson, 2010), little field research has been completed on directly quantifying ET rates and the hydrologic benefits green roofs in Canada including the influence of different vegetation types. The lack of available data on ET rates from green roofs limits optimal green roof design under the Canadian climate

Research priorities in observing and modeling urban weather and climate

In 2007, the world reached the unprecedented milestone of half of its people living in cities, and that proportion is projected to be 60% in 2030. The combined effect of global climate change and rapid urban growth, accompanied by economic and industrial development, will likely make city residents more vulnerable to a number of urban environmental problems, including extreme weather and climate conditions, sea-level rise, poor public health and air quality, atmospheric transport of accidental or intentional releases of toxic material, and limited water resources. One fundamental aspect of predicting the future risks and defining mitigation strategies is to understand the weather and regional climate affected by cities. For this reason, dozens of researchers from many disciplines and nations attended the Urban Weather and Climate Workshop.1 Twenty-five students from Chinese universities and institutes also took part. The presentations by the workshop's participants span a wide range of topics, from the interaction between the urban climate and energy consumption in climate-change environments to the impact of urban areas on storms and local circulations, and from the impact of urbanization on the hydrological cycle to air quality and weather prediction

Is self-assessment in religious education unique?

This paper addresses the question: is self-assessment in religious education unique? It first presents an overview of some challenges for assessment from subject differences, and then reviews the generic literature on self-assessment. It builds on earlier empirical research on self-assessment in religious education, carried out in an English state secondary school (Fancourt 2010); this was used to propose a variant of self-assessment which is tailored to the demands of religious education – reflexive self-assessment. Its implications for more general understandings of the relationship between subject pedagogy and self-assessment are discussed, especially the recognition of values not only in religious education but in other subjects too, reinforcing the need to develop subject-specific variants of self-assessment that reflect the breadth of learning outcomes

Evaluating the association between extreme heat and mortality in urban Southwestern Ontario using different temperature data sources

Urban areas have complex thermal distribution. We examined the association between extreme temperature and mortality in urban Ontario, using two temperature data sources: high-resolution and weather station data. We used distributed lag non-linear Poisson models to examine census division-specific temperature–mortality associations between May and September 2005–2012. We used random-effect multivariate meta-analysis to pool results, adjusted for air pollution and temporal trends, and presented risks at the 99th percentile compared to minimum mortality temperature. As additional analyses, we varied knots, examined associations using different temperature metrics (humidex and minimum temperature), and explored relationships using different referent values (most frequent temperature, 75th percentile of temperature distribution). Weather stations yielded lower temperatures across study months. U-shaped associations between temperature and mortality were observed using both high-resolution and weather station data. Temperature–mortality relationships were not statistically significant; however, weather stations yielded estimates with wider confidence intervals. Similar findings were noted in additional analyses. In urban environmental health studies, high-resolution temperature data is ideal where station observations do not fully capture population exposure or where the magnitude of exposure at a local level is important. If focused upon temperature–mortality associations using time series, either source produces similar temperature–mortality relationships

Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in the Environment: Terminology, Classification, and Origins

The primary aim of this article is to provide an overview of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) detected in the environment, wildlife, and humans, and recommend clear, specific, and descriptive terminology, names, and acronyms for PFASs. The overarching objective is to unify and harmonize communication on PFASs by offering terminology for use by the global scientific, regulatory, and industrial communities. A particular emphasis is placed on long-chain perfluoroalkyl acids, substances related to the long-chain perfluoroalkyl acids, and substances intended as alternatives to the use of the long-chain perfluoroalkyl acids or their precursors. First, we define PFASs, classify them into various families, and recommend a pragmatic set of common names and acronyms for both the families and their individual members. Terminology related to fluorinated polymers is an important aspect of our classification. Second, we provide a brief description of the 2 main production processes, electrochemical fluorination and telomerization, used for introducing perfluoroalkyl moieties into organic compounds, and we specify the types of byproducts (isomers and homologues) likely to arise in these processes. Third, we show how the principal families of PFASs are interrelated as industrial, environmental, or metabolic precursors or transformation products of one another. We pay particular attention to those PFASs that have the potential to be converted, by abiotic or biotic environmental processes or by human metabolism, into long-chain perfluoroalkyl carboxylic or sulfonic acids, which are currently the focus of regulatory action. The Supplemental Data lists 42 families and subfamilies of PFASs and 268 selected individual compounds, providing recommended names and acronyms, and structural formulas, as well as Chemical Abstracts Service registry numbers. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2011;7:513–541. © 2011 SETA

A method for mapping the turbulence intensity and excess energy available to building mounted wind turbines over a UK City

Assessing the potential of proposed urban wind installations is further hindered by insufficient assessments of both urban wind resource, and the effectiveness of commercial gust control solutions within built up areas. Evaluating the potential performance of wind turbines within the urban environment requires an estimation of the total energy that would be available to them were effective control systems to be used. This paper presents a methodology for estimating the excess energy content (EEC) present in the gusty urban wind, which is usually under represented when using assessments based only on mean wind speeds. The method is developed using high temporal resolution wind measurements from eight potential turbine sites within the urban and suburban environment. By assessing the relationship between turbulence intensities and the EEC, an analytical methodology for predicting the total wind energy available at a potential turbine site is proposed. Sensitivity analysis with respect to temporal data resolution on the predicted EEC is also demonstrated. The methodology is then integrated with an analytical methodology that was initially developed to predict mean wind speeds at different heights within a UK city based on detailed mapping of its aerodynamic characteristics. Additional estimates of turbulence intensities and EEC based on the current methodology allow a more complete assessment of the wind resource available. The methodology is applied to the UK city of Leeds as a case study and the potential to map turbulence intensities and the total kinetic energy available at different heights within a typical urban city is demonstrated

Growth and properties of strained VOx thin films with controlled stoichiometry

We have succeeded in growing epitaxial films of rocksalt VOx on MgO(001) substrates. The oxygen content as a function of oxygen flux was determined using 18O2-RBS and the vanadium valence using XAS. The upper and lower stoichiometry limits found are similar to the ones known for bulk material (0.8<x<1.3). From the RHEED oscillation period a large number of vacancies for both vanadium and oxygen were deduced, i.e. ~16% for stoichiometric VO. These numbers are, surprisingly, very similar to those for bulk material and consequently quite strain-insensitive. XAS measurements reveal that the vacancies give rise to strong low symmetry ligand fields to be present. The electrical conductivity of the films is much lower than the conductivity of bulk samples which we attribute to a decrease in the direct overlap between t2g orbitals in the coherently strained layers. The temperature dependence of the conductivity is consistent with a variable range hopping mechanism.Comment: 12 pages, 16 figures included, revised versio