​https://citiesipcc.org/

I feel very proud of my hometown for hosting the International CitiesIPCC conference this Spring (2018).  I was thrilled to be able to share about my research on  “Room for rivers and voices: A comparison of Room for the River approaches in Alberta and The Netherlands”. It was really exciting to meet so many people from around the world who are dedicated to addressing climate change issues and working towards a healthier and more sustainable future for all. I am also very grateful to be part of the Just Powers team - we launched four of our projects at the conference! Just Powers is focused on social and environmental justice in transitioning towards a lower-carbon Canada.

Cities play a critical role in climate change. First, cities produce over 70% of CO2 emissions. Second, cities are hotspots for experiencing the impacts of climate change. For example, the biggest climate change threat to Edmonton is serious storms (CBC News, 2018). Among other impacts, this translates to the City needing to spend $2.5 billion to upgrade its drainage system. Third, cities are very important because they can make things happen on-the-ground on a daily basis and also understand how to integrate many different sectors, departments, and disciplines. The City of Edmonton has a strong Change for Climate program, including an ambitious Energy Transition Strategy.

Cities are demonstrating strong leadership in addressing climate change. Cities helped in the development and collaboration of the Paris Climate Agreement at COP21 in Paris which was signed by 195 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) members. Many cities also joined the #CitiesIPCC campaign to bring more attention to the role of cities in responding to climate change. In addition, many cities have joined C40 and 100 Resilient Cities. One of the outcomes of the CitiesIPCC 2018 conference is a Joint Statement to Work Together to Implement the Global Research Agenda on Cities and Climate Change.

Key areas for cities to respond to climate change include more engagement and collaboration among those in governing roles (planners, politicians, decision-makers, policy-makers), between different levels of government, and with physical scientists and social scientists as well as on-the-ground practitioners. Also, sharing and implementing data and evidence-based research.

The CitiesIPCC conference made several strong impressions on me:

1.  IPCC is not just focusing on physical sciences and technology anymore, it is paying more attention to behaviour and lifestyle changes of individuals and groups (drawing from psychology and social science) as well as issues of governance. Some courageous conference attendees argued to stop downloading responsibilities onto citizens that are better addressed as a collective and through policies and regulations by different levels of government. In other words, focusing more on social practices that promote less consumption and on intervening in links within systems. For more information on how to apply a practice-based approach to energy transition, visit the DEMAND Centre. 
2. Highlighting the critical role of discourse and advocating for examination of discourse to understand which worldviews and beliefs are being promoted. Then asking, how come certain discourses dominate over others? For example, why does the techno-fix discourse (environmental problems can be fixed with more and better technology) dominate over the discourse on reducing our ecological footprint by consuming less and wasting less?
3. The importance of recognizing power differentials among stakeholders, especially based on gender and socio-economic status. Women (because of their role in providing water and wood, their work in food and agriculture, and their role in caring for families), children, and those living in poverty will be most impacted by climate change (especially in developing countries) and will have the least resources to adapt and recover from floods, droughts, storms, habitat destruction, and increased conflict over natural resources.

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​Overall, attending the CitiesIPCC was an amazing experience and I feel lucky to live in Edmonton because it is committed to addressing climate change (plus, our river valley is beautiful and is the largest intact urban park in N. America!). 

​In Alberta, the high cost of the 2013 flood ($5 billion) and a growing sensitivity to the impacts of climate variability triggered reassessment of costly infrastructural solutions and exploration of other approaches, leading to three RfR pilot projects. The Government of Alberta consulted the Dutch Deltares Research Institute for advice. One of the locations implementing the RfR approach is the Town of High River (see report), the community most impacted by the flooding. The other two projects, Bow River Basin and Red Deer River Basin, were conceptual and involved extensive dialogues in workshops to explore various options.
 
Overall, my PhD research identified that the RfR projects in Alberta were perceived as shifting focus away from top-down and large-scale infrastructure approaches toward a more participatory and environmentally-sustainable flood management system, with research participants and the public voicing support for the RfR philosophy and demanding more projects. However, unlike transferrable technological change, RfR requires fundamental shifts in paradigms and practices—including changes in institutional structures, decision-making processes, and power dynamics—and hence is more challenging to implement.
 
Based on my PhD research findings that the RfR projects in Alberta opened a path for institutionalising a more comprehensive flood management system, I wondered, what policies and practices are needed to make more room for rivers and voices in flood risk management? The purpose of my research in the Netherlands was to gain a better understanding of the Dutch RfR approach and how to implement or adapt their governance approach in Alberta.
 
To that end, I conducted research in the Netherlands on their RfR approach in addition to my main PhD research, with the same research objectives for comparison: 1. Investigate decision-making processes; and 2. Analyze stakeholder engagement processes. I conducted 11 interviews in the Netherlands and 38 in Alberta with individuals in decision-making and advisory roles, such as managers, directors, planners, engineers, developers, contractors, scientists, media, non-profits and water organizations. I also analyzed policies, historical and other documents.
 
The other main activity was to learn about stakeholder engagement methods. Delft University and Deltares have developed a unique collaborative modelling approach and a planning kit for their signature stakeholder engagement approaches. I also learned about ‘serious’ interactive role-playing games which are becoming a popular tool for addressing complex social and environmental problems and even had the opportunity to play several fun games. Incidentally, being introduced to role-playing games has opened up opportunities to work on the Future Energy Systems program, more specifically in the Energy Humanities section, developing agame, amongst other activities, to explore climate change and energy transition.
 
The Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University was very welcoming. It was exciting to meet many scholars whose publications are foundational in environmental sociology. I joined the Best Practices reading group at Wageningen University and its members brought me up to speed on the current European debates in practice theory. The professors and PhD students are highly knowledgeable about practice-based approaches and helped to further my ideas by providing feedback on my work. One of the leading scholars in practice theory, Dr. Allen Warde, visited Wageningen University and gave a talk on his new publication.
 
Having office space at Wageningen University, I observed differences in culture and procedures between Wageningen University and my home university. Exemplifying the Dutch culture of collaboration, it is more common for professors and students to work together on multi-disciplinary and multi-layered projects as a team than it is for a student to toil alone on a large project.
 
I was invited to present on my research at the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education in Delft and received very useful feedback. One of my goals since I was a teen was to work with the United Nations and that is one reason I decided to pursue a PhD. It was an indescribable feeling being at the IHE and coming a step closer to this dream! At the IHE Institute’s conference, a multi-disciplinary approach (social sciences and physical sciences) to flood risk management was promoted – this message further reinforced that I was on the right track with the main arguments of my research.
 
Not all the activities I did were planned ahead of time - often one opportunity led to another. The Dutch were very friendly and offered me tours of their RfR projects, historic towns, and the Delta works (mega-infrastructures for coastal flood defence). I attended a conference on the role of culture in disaster risk reduction by EDUCEN. It was amazing to meet people from all over Europe and to learn about various research projects and best practices in flood management.
 
I traveled to the University of Lancaster to meet with Dr. Elizabeth Shove whose version of practice theory I am applying. It is quite rare that students get to meet the scholars whose theories they are interpreting and to have discussion about it! I learned about the DEMAND Centre and their innovative work on energy and mobility. I was also very fortunate to be invited to present at the University of Dundee and to learn more about all the interesting work they are doing on flood management.
 
When I returned to Alberta, I presented at conferences comparing findings between the Netherlands and Alberta and attendees (representatives from industry and all levels of government from across the Canada) were interested in learning about the Dutch approach in greater detail and in exploring potential applications. While they have their challenges and struggles, overall, the Dutch have a more democratic, inclusive, and innovative approach to riverine flood risk management: I hope that sharing my research findings will create opportunities for more room for voices and rivers in Alberta and beyond.

​http://www.unisdr.org/conferences/2017/globalplatform/en

​After four incredible years of living and working on several organic ranches in Canada, as well as volunteering in Namibia and New Zealand, I headed back to complete a MSc. in Environmental Sociology. My thesis was on the BSE (mad cow) crisis in Canada and to what extent it served as an opportunity for learning and changes. Afterwards, I was fortunate to work for the University of Alberta and other organizations on several projects related to local food, food security, urban agriculture, agricultural-environmental stewardship, and urban-rural interdependencies. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to be involved in agriculture from “field to plate” and beyond to research and policy.

​In May 2003, Canada announced its first BSE case. The 19th case of BSE was discovered in Alberta in 2015. 

Based on the widely held notion that a crisis can be an opportunity for learning and change, as well as cause members of society to (re)evaluate the roles and effectiveness of key institutions, I conducted research in 2007 to explore: To what extent did the BSE crisis serve as an opportunity for learning and changes?

I examined evidence of learning and changes in the perceptions, practices and organization of government representatives and beef producers in the Peace Country M.D. 135 in Alberta, Canada.  Semi-structured open-ended interviews with beef producers in the Peace District (N=10), as well as government representatives such as ministers, agricultural extension agents and field officers (N=10).  

In Canada, there are two divergent perspectives on the BSE crisis.  The first is that Canada had learned numerous lessons, that the crisis was well-managed and is now resolved, and BSE will be eliminated from the Canadian herd in the next decade.  The other is that the lessons have not been learned to the degree of reflexive modernization and, that BSE is a symptom of underlying problems in modern intensive agriculture. The same factors that prevented reflexivity in the BSE crisis may play a role in turning food safety issues into crises in the future. For specific details of the findings, see attached poster.

​http://www.theurbanfarmer.ca/organic-tours/

Immigrants represent a significant segment of the senior population in Canada but their adaptation and integration into Canadian society can be extremely difficult due to variety of economic, social and health factors. It was hypothesized that involvement in urban agriculture could assist senior immigrants in addressing some of the challenges they face. Urban agriculture is increasingly recognized for its contributions to individual and community well-being, and has also proven to be an effective way for many minority groups to become integrated into the socio-economic fabric of the cultures and countries they immigrate to. In 2007, a pilot project was launched in Edmonton, Alberta to train senior immigrants in a commercial approach to UA, known as Small Plot Intensive (SPIN) farming. This project was developed through a university-community partnership involving the Senior Association of Greater Edmonton (SAGE), the Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative (MCHB), and members of the Faculty of Extension at the University of Alberta. Interdisciplinary and exploratory research was used to investigate the effectiveness of the project, with data derived primarily from qualitative interviews with key informants. This research identifies the benefits and challenges of utilizing a collaborative approach in this type of initiative and explores the role of urban agriculture in growing partnerships and community. See attached poster for details on findings.


The Urban Agriculture for Senior Immigrants project ran from 2007 until 2014 when it ran out of funding.