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Home > Projects
Climate Change & Waterborne Diseases in Canada: Manitoba Case Study
This case study is part of the larger project Links Between Climate, Water and Waterborne Illness, and Projected Impacts of Climate Change. The working title is: Understanding Vulnerability and Enhancing Adaptive Capacity: A Case Study of Water Contamination & Waterborne Disease in the South Tobacco Creek Watershed (Manitoba)
In this research, the theoretical concept of resilience is explored (Tompkins and Adger 2003; Gunderson and Holling 2002; Folke and others 2002; Walker and others 2002; Carpenter, Walker, Anderies, and Abel 2001; Barnett 2001) and a conceptual resilience framework is developed as a possible practical guide to reducing vulnerability and increasing adaptive capacity to climate change at the local, watershed level.
The question of how building social and ecological resilience might reduce vulnerability and increase adaptive capacity will be explored within the context of water contamination and waterborne disease in rural watersheds on the Canadian Prairies. The Canadian Prairies, characterized under historical and current climate conditions by drought and temperature extremes, are perceived to be particularly sensitive to increases in climate variability and extreme weather events. Warmer temperatures, decreased soil moisture, greater incidence and severity both of drought and intense precipitation events and reductions in water availability and quality are all projected. Outbreaks of waterborne disease stemming from pathogen-contaminated drinking water in Walkerton, Ontario and North Battleford, Saskatchewan, are raising concerns not only about the vulnerability of existing drinking water systems to contamination, but also of the possibility of increased vulnerability due to increases in climatic variability and extremes accompanying climate change.
The Adaptive Methodology for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health (Waltner-Toews, Kay, Murray, and Neudoerffer In Press) will be used in this dissertation as a research methodology to study the vulnerability in two adjacent watersheds on the Canadian Prairies to water contamination and the process of enhancing adaptive capacity. Thus, a secondary goal of this dissertation is to evaluate the utility of AMESH as a research methodology for studying complex eco-social problems. This research will contribute both to the theoretical understanding of vulnerability and adaptive capacity and to the policy debate in Canada over how rural communities should prepare to deal with the effects of climate change.
Purpose:
To learn through case study;
· What is the current vulnerability of a rural watershed on the Canadian Prairies to water contamination and water-borne disease connected to extreme weather events?
· What is the process through which vulnerability is reduced and adaptive capacity is enhanced?
· How is social and ecological resilience enhanced (or social and biophysical vulnerability reduced)? (Or what activities are undertaken in a watershed to reduce biophysical vulnerability to water contamination and water-borne disease and what types of institutions and social networks are involved in such activities?)
· How does building resilience contribute to enhancing adaptive capacity?
· How do citizens in the watershed address uncertainty about climate change?
Goal:
· To characterize and assess the vulnerability of a rural watershed to water contamination and water-borne disease connected to extreme weather events and study and assess the process, both biophysical and social, through which such vulnerability has been reduced.
Objectives:
· Develop a conceptual framework or model of the vulnerability of a rural watershed to water contamination and water-borne disease connected to extreme weather events.
· Use a case study approach to apply the framework to the case of the South Tobacco Creek Watershed and demonstrate how each element relates to other components of the conceptual framework.
· Recommend specific policy and management interventions that promote adaptation to climate change, with a particular focus on building ecological and social resilience in rural watersheds.
| Progress | THESIS ABSTRACT (December 2007) AN ANALYSIS OF RURAL WATERSHED ADAPTATION DYNAMICS: BUILDING SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE CANADIAN PRAIRIES Ruth Cynthia Neudoerffer Advisor: Professor David Waltner-Toews, University of Guelph, 2007 This thesis is an investigation of how and why rural communities on the Canadian Prairies adapt to environmental change caused by extreme weather events and contributes to the theoretical, empirical, and practical understanding of the process of adaptation. The Prairie climate is distinguished by high variability. Climate change projections suggest warmer temperatures, drier conditions, greater incidence and severity of both drought and extreme precipitation events, and reductions in water availability and quality will prevail in future years. Rural communities will need to adapt to such changes. The process of adaptation, however, is not well studied. Resilience, because of its explicit focus on processes of change in social-ecological systems is though to have much potential to contribute to climate change adaptation research. This thesis is based on the premise that one of the most promising ways to inform climate change adaptation theory and policy is to study past processes of adaptation to environmental changes believed to be representative of projected future conditions. Using an historical analogue approach the thesis studied the twenty-year soil and water conservation experience of the Deerwood Soil and Water Management Association in the South Tobacco Creek watershed, in south-central Manitoba, building a network of small dams to control runoff and prevent soil erosion, as a successful process of adaptation to the impacts of extreme weather events. The thesis developed a conceptual model of adaptation and an associated analytical framework for practical adaptation assessment that explicitly integrates the concepts of vulnerability and resilience into a model of adaptation as a dynamic and emergent process of learning from exposure experiences to reduce vulnerability by building social-ecological resilience. The conceptual model is grounded in Holling’s Adaptive Cycle metaphor and integrates concepts of transformation to adaptive governance and building resilience through increasing the ability to absorb change, self-organize, and innovate, experiment and learn. The analytical framework developed to apply the conceptual model is comprised of nine (9) steps, each characterized by a guiding question for analysis. The utility of the model/framework to describe and explain the process of adaptation to environmental change is demonstrated through the case study. |
| Team | Principal Investigator: Cynthia Neudoerffer School of Environmental Design & Rural Development (Rural Studies) University of Guelph
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| Funding | This study pertaining to vulnerability and adaptation to water contamination in two Manitoba communities benefited from the financial support of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) doctoral fellowship held by R. Cynthia Neudoerffer. Funding support for the overall project was received from the Health Policy Research Program, Health Canada. The views expressed herein are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or official policy of Health Canada. |
| Collaborators | Committee Members:
David Waltner-Toews
Barry Smit
Dominique Charron Special thanks to:
Ellen Wall
Bill Turner
Les McEwan
Gordon Orchard
Current and Past Members
South Tobacco Creek Project Steering Committee
Coleman (North Tobacco Creek) Watershed Steering Committee
Jim Yurotski
Cliff Greenfield
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