Expressions of Intent for International Polar Year 2007-2008 Activities

Expression of Interest Details

PROPOSAL INFORMATION

Modelling and Simulation of Permafrost Dynamics and Settlement Adaptation: The Case of Canadian North  (Permafrost and Settlement (PnS))

Outline
In many northern communities, the stability of building foundation systems relies on the strength of the underlying permafrost. Building deterioration due to the loss of this strength/stability would profoundly affect human well-being and economic activities in the communities. The effects of permafrost degradation due to climate warming observed in recent decades are of major concern in northern Canada both to the public and to decision makers. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that by 2100, air temperature will increase globally by 1.4°-5.8°C based on a range of greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Moreover, temperature increases in the North will be greater than the global average. There is consensus among earth scientists that air temperature increases in this century will accelerate permafrost degradation, thereby exacerbating impacts on foundation systems with serious socio-economic consequences for northern communities. The proposed IPY activity aims to improve our understanding of future permafrost degradation, of the associated vulnerability of community infrastructure, and of the timeframes, options and potential costs for adaptation. In particular, it will address the above concerns by answering the following scientific and social questions: (1) How much permafrost degradation will take place due to climate change under different greenhouse gas emission scenarios and in different communities/geographic regions in Canada? (2) What will be the impacts of permafrost degradation on human settlements? (3) What will be the costs of the impacts with or without adaptation? (4) What are the timeframes within which adaptation action is required in order to minimize the costs? Answers to the above questions are critical for public and decision makers to take adequate and timely adaptation action in order to minimize potential damages. To understand and project permafrost degradation, a process-based permafrost simulation model is necessary. Through the study of permafrost impacts on communities in the Northwest Territories, undertaken in NRCan’s Program on Reducing Canada’s Vulnerability to Climate Change and the Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Program, the project team has developed a physical, process-based, surface-coupled, 3-dimensional permafrost model for simulating thermal regimes beneath and surrounding building foundation systems. The model has been successfully validated and has been applied to a case community in Canada’s Northwest Territories. The methodology development for assessing the impacts on and adaptation costs to community foundation systems based on the model outputs is in progress, with version 1 of the methodology nearly completed. Building on the above study, this proposed IPY project will expand the study regions from the Northwest Territories to the Yukon, Nunavut, and northern regions of Manitoba, Quebec, and Labrador, thus completing the assessment for all permafrost-affected communities in Canada. This expansion may serve as a case for a circumpolar assessment of community housing vulnerability for Arctic communities. Further model enhancements are envisioned during this research and a new costing method will be developed, involving different adaptation scenarios, in order to improve understanding of vulnerability and identify opportunities for effective adaptation.

What significant advance(s) in relation to the IPY themes and targets can be anticipated from this project?
This research will contribute mainly to IPY Theme 2 and Theme 6 by: (a) assessing permafrost dynamics/degradation in Canadian Arctic communities and its direct impacts on their building foundation systems through modelling, (b) developing adaptation strategies for adversely affected foundation systems, (c) assessing the associated costs to communities, and (d) identifying critical timeframes for adaptation actions to minimize adverse impacts.

What international collaboration is involved in this project?
Existing collaboration with Canadian project investigating potential impacts of permafrost degradation on northern roads. This project is developing collaboration with Chinese scientists and anticipates future linkages with Russian researchers. Colleagues in the USA have expressed interest in using our permafrost model.

FIELD ACTIVITY DETAILS

Geographical location(s) for the proposed field activities:
Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic - communities in the Northwest Territories, Yukon Territory, Nunavut, Manitoba, and Quebec (Nunavik)

Approximate timeframe(s) for proposed field activities:
Arctic: 06/07 – 09/07      06/08 – 09/08      06/09 – 09/09
Antarctic: n/a

Significant facilities will be required for this project:
Facilities for thermal and hydrological monitoring for northern communities in Canada; Aurora Research Institute facilities (Inuvik and Hay River); Nunavut Research Institute facilities (Iqaluit, Igloolik, etc.)

Will the project leave a legacy of infrastructure?
Yes mainly in terms of research tools (model) and the associated databases. We hope that the advanced model we are developing will be useful for northern research facilities, engineering communities, and infrastructure managers.

How is it envisaged that the required logistic support will be secured?
Own national polar operator
National agency
Commercial operator

The funding is expected to be provided from three Canadian programs: 1) the Canadian-IPY Program 2) the Climate Change Program of Natural Resources Canada (phase 2: 2006-2009) 3) existing funding from the Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Program in Natural Resources Canada (2006-2007).

Has the project been "endorsed" at a national or international level?
Yes -The project has been endorsed and fund from 2005-2006 provided by the Canadian National Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Program (CCIAP). By submitting this EoI, we are seeking the endorsement of the international IPY office through the Cold Land Processes Cluster.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND STRUCTURE

Is the project a short-term expansion (over the IPY 2007-2008 timeframe) of an existing plan, programme or initiative or is it a new autonomous proposal?
Yes

The proposed project is an expansion of a project that has been undertaken as part of the first phase of the Climate Change Program within Natural Resources Canada (Government of Canada). It is expected to be part of the second phase of this Program, which is currently under renewal. The work has received endorsement and partial funding from Canada’s national program on Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation (CCIAP) as well.

How will the project be organised and managed?
The project (activity) is a component of an existing project – Socio-economic Vulnerability and Integrated Assessment – within the Climate Change Program in Natural Resources Canada. The program and the project have been in place for about three years and another five-year program and project are currently being developed. Natural Resources Canada implements a formal management system with outcomes and outputs defining specific milestones and deliverables and uses performance indicators to evaluate the value and impact of project activities and outputs. .

What are the initial plans of the project for addressing the education, outreach and communication issues outlined in the Framework document?
The existing project has a number of stakeholders in the Northwest Territories of Canada. A number of workshops have been held and others are planned. The stakeholder community will be expanded to encompass the broader geographic scope of the IPY project. As in the past, the project will gather research requirements from the stakeholders, and it will work closely with them in obtaining and using results to ensure that outputs of the project will be valuable to and taken up by decision-makers in the north.

What are the initial plans of the project to address data management issues (as outlined in the Framework document?
The output data will be stored in a project database and made available with metadata in the Geoscience Data Repository, a distributed Web-searchable database within Natural Resources Canada.

How is it proposed to fund the project?
The previous and current project activities have been funded by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and the Canadian Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Program (Oct 2005 to Dec 2006). The proposed project will request funding from the Government of Canada IPY fund in addition to anticipated modest funding in phase II of the NRCan Climate Change Program.

Is there additional information you wish to provide?
Human settlement has been identified as a major area of northern community impacts in various earlier studies. We hope that through the integration of our work into the IPY research, we will be able to share our research outcomes with to a larger community of cold land research and, at the same time, benefit from this community by broadened exchange of and access to data and models, thereby contributing to the larger effort to improve our understanding of climate change impacts, socio-economic consequences, and windows of opportunities for adaptation in the polar regions.

PROPOSER DETAILS

Dr Fuqun Zhou
Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, Natural Resources Canada
615 Booth Street, Room 650
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0E9
Canada

Tel: (613) 947-5282
Mobile: no
Fax: (613) 947-2410
Email:

Other project members and their affiliation