The City of Brandon in partnership with Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship and other partners, released a Municipal Adapting Planning Study on Friday that focused on “adapting to climate change — a risk-based guide.”
In the study’s introduction, it says that recent climate change assessments predict the Prairie provinces will “experience an increased risk of water scarcity and variability of water supply in the future. This includes the potential for more frequent and extreme weather events that cause flooding and excess moisture conditions within river floodplains and across landscapes.”
Katy Walsh, planning policy and programs employee for Manitoba Local Government, co-chaired the study, and said that they were looking at how a climate change planning tool could be incorporated into the government’s existing decision-making structures.
“They found that it would work quite well with the existing framework,” Walsh said. “It provides another lens to look through, more questions to ask, issues to consider and stakeholders to include.”
There are numerous climate change adaption planning tools, many of which are developed in B.C. and Ontario, Walsh said. This study provided the opportunity to examine how one of them would apply in Manitoba’s planning framework.
“Everyone is aware that climate change is happening, and that mitigation and adaptation are necessary. The federal government provided resources to all provinces to look into adaptation at the provincial level. Part of that for us was to work also at the local level,” Walsh said.
To review the final report go to: parc.ca/rac/fileManagement/upload/MB_PRAC_MAP_Final_Report_April%2024.pdf
» Brandon Sun
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition August 11, 2012
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