$12.5M funding for five climate change research projects

Ottawa, ON – Five research teams in Canada have been awarded a total of $12.5 million dollars under the International Research Initiative on Adaptation to Climate Change (IRIACC).

The announcement was made by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) together with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Each team will receive $2.5 million over five years to study how best to protect people, communities and vital economic sectors that are most at risk from the effects of climate change. The projects, which will take place in Canada and in developing countries across four continents, aim to address an important gap in our climate change knowledge, namely, how to anticipate, manage, and reduce climate risk vulnerability through adaptation.

Their projects and respective team leads are:

Coastal Cities at Risk: Building Adaptive Capacity for Managing Climate Change in Coastal Megacities. Anond Snidvongs, Chulalongkorn University and Southeast Asia START. Regional Research Center, Thailand, Gordon McBean, University of Western Ontario, Canada.

Adapting to Climate Change: Protecting Water Resources in West Africa and Canada. Driss Ouazar, Université Mohammed V Agdal, Maroc. Taha Ouarda, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Canada.

Partnership for Canada-Caribbean Community Climate Change Adaptation. Murray Simpson, the CARIBSAVE Partnership, Barbados, Daniel Scott, University of Waterloo, Canada.

Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change. Alejandro Llanos, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Peru, Shuaib Lwasa, Makerere University, Uganda
James Ford, McGill University, Canada, Lea Berrang Ford, McGill University, Canada

Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Extremes in the Americas. Fernando Santibañez, Universidad de Chile, Chile, David J. Sauchyn, University of Regina, Canada.

“The knowledge and expertise of NSERC-funded researchers will play a key role in finding solutions to the environmental changes that affect the most vulnerable communities in Canada and around the world,” says Suzanne Fortier, NSERC president. “By collaborating on an international scale, these researchers will be able to strengthen efforts that will ultimately lead to the effective management of, and adaptation to, a changing environment.”