Three New Frontiers in Research Fund-International grants, with additional $3.2 million from partner countries, to support climate change adaptation and mitigation research in Global South, Scandinavia and Canadian Arctic

Today, the Canadian government announced the 2023 results of the New Frontiers in Research Fund grants (NFRF), including $6.1 million for three 91亚色-led research collaborations that will focus on how vulnerable communities 鈥� including those in Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, the Philippines, Rwanda, Scandinavia, and Canada鈥檚 Arctic region 鈥� could mitigate or adapt to climate change.

鈥淐limate change and its various economic and social impacts are observed globally. By supporting game-changing interdisciplinary research and fostering international collaboration for innovative projects, our government is committed to finding innovative solutions that could have a significant impact on some of the world鈥檚 most vulnerable populations,鈥� said National Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, announcing $60 million allocated across 32 research teams through the International Joint Initiative for Research in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Competition, during an event at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Research funders from Brazil, Germany, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, collaborated on the initiative. Together, more than $30 million in additional funding was contributed to the research projects by the international funders, according to a Canada Research Coordinating Committee .

鈥淭oday鈥檚 funding announcement highlights our country鈥檚 commitment to support international research collaborations led by Canadian academic leaders like 91亚色 researchers who engage in incredibly important global projects,鈥� says Amir Asif, 91亚色鈥檚 vice-president research and innovation. 鈥淚 thank Canada and other funding partner countries for their support, and I commend 91亚色鈥檚 research community for their continued commitment to tackling the most significant threat to our planet and the future of humanity, climate change.鈥�

The projects will examine how changing sea ice and snow conditions in Northern Canada and Alaska are affecting the lives of Indigenous Peoples; how coastal communities in Bangladesh, Ghana and the Philippines can be negatively affected by climate change adaptation programs; and how support for good governance practices can halt biodiversity decline and accelerate nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation in Central America and East Africa.

BioCAM4 鈥� Biodiversity Integration in Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Actions for Planet, People, and Human Health:

Professor Idil Boran, an expert in applied environmental governance and public policy in the Department of Philosophy and a Faculty Fellow at 91亚色鈥檚 Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health, has secured $3.1 million as the principal investigator and lead for the consortium project. This includes $1.6 million in grants from and .

The objective of the project is to develop methodologies for mapping Nature-based Climate Action trends worldwide and assessing local opportunities and challenges through deep-dive studies in two biodiversity hot-spot regions: East Africa and Central America, where vulnerable groups and communities are among the most affected by climate impacts, least responsible for it, and have reduced adaptive capacity due to social and economic fragility.

In partnerships with research institutes, non-governmental organizations, and universities in Kenya, Rwanda, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Germany, Netherlands, and the UK, the team will work on outputs to serve as a blueprint for counterparts facing similar risks within low- and middle-income countries. With open-access global databases, toolkits and policy-engagement processes rooted in open and collaborative science principles, the project will generate resources for researchers and practitioners worldwide.

, an ecologist with extensive experience in interdisciplinary research and science policy who served as the director of the Institute for Research Innovation in Sustainability, is the co-principal investigator from 91亚色. Other 91亚色 researchers on the project鈥檚 core team are Faculty of Health and Gender, Sexuality and Women鈥檚 Studies . Environmental and Urban Change , director of 91亚色鈥檚 Las Nubes Eco-campus in Costa Rica, is one of the collaborating partners.

Climate Change Adaptation, Dispossession and Displacement: Co-constructing Solutions with Coastal Vulnerable Groups in Africa and Asia:

Migration and critical health psychology scholar, , in the Department of Psychology who conducts community-based research in both conflict and environment induced forced migration, will receive $3.1 million, including $1.4 million from the and UKRI for the project, as its principal investigator. in the Department of Equity Studies is a co-principal investigator. She is an interdisciplinary migration and international development scholar and the incoming director of 91亚色鈥檚 Centre for Refugee Studies, which will host the project.

In partnership with research institutes, universities, and community organizations in Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Norway, Philippines and the UK, the project will focus on gendered processes of displacement, dispossession, and other unintended negative impacts of climate-adaptation projects. Focusing on coastal communities of Bangladesh, Ghana and the Philippines, the team will collaboratively develop an intersectional framework for adaptation and build community-centred interventions to avoid maladaptation.

The team will also co-develop low-tech, mobile phone applications and virtual platforms for communities to share and document their knowledge, strategies, innovations and concerns with one another. These tools can help in sharing local community responses, as well as informing future programming and supporting a collaborative, intersectional, contextualized and equitable framework for adaptation.

Climate changed transportation: holistic and Indigenous informed responses to transportation infrastructure, food security and community well-being in the Arctic:

As the principal investigator, 91亚色 Research Chair in Global Change Biology Professor Sapna Sharma, the inaugural director of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research Global Water Academy, whose research interest is in predicting the effects of environmental stressors 鈥� such as climate change, invasive species and habitat alteration 鈥� on lakes, will receive nearly $3.1 million for the project.

The project will co-develop adaptation measures and technological solutions to decrease the frequency of drownings and accidents in response to hazardous cryospheric conditions for Arctic Indigenous communities, and promote enhanced mobility and food security, in addition to physical and mental health. The main goals of the researchers are to map and forecast safe cryospheric conditions across the Arctic and explore observational and modelling tools to enhance Indigenous capacity in stewarding their land.

With a vision of empowerment, unity and resilience in the face of complex challenges, the research team will co-create knowledge mobilization products for promoting knowledge exchange across generations and communities by transcending transdisciplinary research and community boundaries across the Arctic.

, in 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Civil Engineering, who studies water resources engineering focusing on research areas including sustainable water-resource management and infrastructure and the impacts of climate change on these systems, and in the Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering, whose climate-dynamics research has helped to clarify the physical processes driving long-term changes in the atmospheric circulation, with implications on Arctic sea ice motion, are co-applicants on the grant.

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Media release from July 25, 2023

91亚色 researchers take novel approach to look at history of deep-water oxygen in Lake Erie through insect larvae in lake sediment over last 150 years.

Researchers at 91亚色 went searching for the fossilized remains of small insect larvae called chironomids, found in sediment in Lake Erie, to find a history of deep water oxygen deprivation in the lake that continues today.

鈥淥ur results indicate that Lake Erie has suffered declines and depletion of bottom oxygen in the past, including prior to major Euro-American settlements, however, it wasn鈥檛 as bad as it is today,鈥� says senior author and Associate Professor Roberto Quinlan. If oxygen continues to decrease, Lake Erie will likely see more algal blooms occurring in the future.

Until now, understanding the oxygen dynamics in Lake Erie was more speculative. The current research, led by former 91亚色 grad student Dmitri Perlov, is novel in that it looked at how an organism, such as chironomid larvae, which is highly sensitive to changing oxygen levels, was affected over the past 150 years.

The researchers studied the presence of these tiny larvae, which metamorphosize into midges as adults, in lake sediment cores from today to before pre-industrial times. They found oxygen depletion rates ramped up as populations increased and agriculture intensified after industrialization in the 1950s, which was likely exacerbated by the development and increased use of phosphorus-rich chemical fertilizers and household detergents. It was particularly bad in the 1960s and 70s. Water clarity started to improve in the 80s and 90s following phosphorus abatement programs initiated in the early 1970s, but oxygen levels have not recovered.

Poor water quality has a lot to do with the lack of deep-water oxygen, which can spur summer algal blooms that can affect the drinking water for millions of people around Lake Erie, and it also means that when there is a temperature inversion, which sends deep waters devoid of oxygen to the surface, it can cause a massive kill-off of fish, that can have major effects on commercial fishing.

鈥淥f all the Great Lakes, Lake Erie is the most stressed by human influence and has the poorest water quality so it is of great interest to both the United States and Canadian federal governments, and all the state and provincial governments that border the Great Lakes,鈥� says Quinlan of 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Science.

Low oxygen levels at the bottom of the lake can produce a chemical environment where phosphorus, a primary nutrient for algae, is released from the sediments.

鈥淎 central pillar of water quality research is trying to control phosphorus. If you get a lake that loses its oxygen and all of this stored phosphorus is released from the sediments, all of these efforts by governments and society to control phosphorus, it鈥檚 all undone by this chemical process that releases a huge amount of phosphorus back into the water and fuels algal blooms,鈥� says Quinlan.

This creates conditions for algal blooms, including harmful cyanobacterial blooms, which turns the water blue-green, makes it smell and taste bad, and can be toxic to humans, pets and livestock, making tap water unsafe to drink.

鈥淥ur study鈥檚 results emphasize the vulnerability of Lake Erie to low oxygen because it naturally had periods of low oxygen prior to large scale European settlement, urbanization, industrialization, agricultural fertilizers and all these additional stressors that make Lake Erie that much more vulnerable to low oxygen,鈥� says Quinlan.

Climate change is what really concerns Quinlan. A warmer climate means warmer winters and shorter ice coverage as well as warmer summers which causes a further loss of oxygen in the deep layers.

鈥淐limate warming is already underway, and this is something that will take decades to reverse,鈥� he says.

Some 13.2 million people live within the Lake Erie watershed, the most populated of the Great Lakes, representing about 34 per cent of the total population in the Great Lakes catchment area.

Lake Erie is a bellwether for other Great Lakes as it has changed the most in response stress and remediation. The researchers say that wide-scale watershed actions are needed if Lake Erie鈥檚 water quality and deep-water oxygen levels are to improve.

The paper, , was published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research.

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SDG 3: Good Health & Well-being

SUPPORTING TRAINING IN VACCINE PRODUCTION

SDG 4: Quality Education

EXPANDING OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION EXPERIENCES

SDG 5: Gender Equality

DEAN'S SCHOLARSHIP FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE SUPPORTS STUDENTS ENTERING GRADUATE STUDIES

SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

YORK RESEARCH DELEGATION LEADS WATER SECURITY PANEL AT UN WATER CONFERENCE

SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

ATMOSPHERIC SCIENTISTS ANALYZE CITY'S AIR POLLUTION

SDG 14: Life Below Water

UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON LAKES AND THEIR ECOSYSTEMS

SDG 15: Life on Land

ENHANCING THE SUSTAINABILITY OF BEES AND THEIR ECOSYSTEM BENEFITS

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

COLLABORATING GLOBALLY FOR CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION

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Media Release from July 18, 2022

As intense heatwaves grip the United Kingdom, Spain, France and Portugal, at times exceeding temperatures 40C, as well as parts of North America and Asia, lakes around the world are feeling the heat from climate change, which is creating a cascade of ecological and environmental issues.

Northern-most lakes are considered the bellwethers of environmental change, but research shows consequences of climate change can affect any of the more than 100 million lakes in the world.

To get a cohesive picture of how climate change is threatening lakes, Reader of Bangor University, Wales, Associate Professor of 91亚色, and Distinguished University Professor of Queen鈥檚 University, reviewed and synthesized available studies on freshwater lakes from across the globe.

The research team found that the effects of climate change on lakes are often cumulative. Warmer water temperatures lead to changes in stratification regimes, declines in dissolved oxygen, a higher risk of cyanobacterial algal blooms, as well as a loss of habitat for native cold-water fish. It can affect not only water quality and quantity, but also cultural and recreational activities, and local economies.

鈥淐limate change has far-reaching social and ecological repercussions, but the impacts of climate change, combined with other environmental pressures, are often little understood and the significance of them has not been appreciated at a global level,鈥� says Sharma of 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Science. 鈥淭here is still much work to be done.鈥�

Warmer air temperatures can impact winter ice cover in the case of northern lakes. Ice loss is one of the most blatant consequences of climate warming on lakes, which can increase winter evaporation rates and water temperatures, and lead to a multitude of physical and chemical effects, including greater salinity. The global mean annual evaporation of lakes is expected to increase by 16 per cent by century鈥檚 end. In addition, lower levels of precipitation can also have a significant effect on lake levels.

鈥淭he ecological consequences of climate change coupled with the impacts of extreme climate events are already occurring in lakes globally and will continue to do so in the future, often without warning or time to adapt,鈥� says Woolway. 鈥淭he results of these kinds of changes have been felt in lakes from Algonquin Park in Ontario to Lake Chad in Africa, the English Lake District in the U.K. to Lake Mead in the United States.鈥�

Declines in water levels can be severe in some regions. Historically ranked as one of the largest lakes in Africa, Lake Chad, which borders Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria, has shrunk considerably because of decreases in local precipitation and discharge from its catchment, as well as increased evaporation.

鈥淓vents like an earlier summer season can also cause mismatches in fish spawning and foraging, often with widespread ramifications across the food web. Although a 鈥榣onger summer鈥� may be welcome to many cottagers and campers, such weather conditions increase the risk of algal blooms, and especially cyanobacterial blooms, which can have far-reaching ecological consequences and even make drinking water toxic,鈥� says Smol.

Some of the effects of climate change are creating conditions where lakes are losing oxygen needed for fish and other aquatic species. This deoxygenation can be made worse by cyanobacterial blooms.

鈥淎lgal blooms can block sunlight from reaching the deeper waters and bacterial decomposition of sedimented algae can lead to a decrease in oxygen for deep-water fish and other aquatic life,鈥� says Woolway. 鈥淚n addition, episodic storms can cause nutrients to suddenly wash into lakes and foster the development of cyanobacterial blooms.鈥�

A decline in the availability of safe drinking water caused by harmful algal blooms is considerably worse when combined with a reduction in water quantity. In 2014, a Cyanobacteria bloom in Lake Erie shut down the water supply in Toledo, Ohio, while a massive toxic cyanobacterial bloom in Lake Taihu, China, shut down the water supply for two million people for a week in Wuxi city.

鈥淚n Ontario, reports of algal blooms have not only increased, but have been reported as late as November, something that was typically not the case in previous years,鈥� says Sharma. 鈥淭hese blooms could also affect tourism and lakeside property values.鈥�

Seven years ago, Algonquin Park banned overnight camping on remote and nutrient-poor Dickson Lake because cyanobacterial blooms caused health concerns. A sediment-based study determined that these blooms were new to the lake and no comparable events had occurred in the last century, but that鈥檚 changing.

Warmer water temperatures, algal blooms, earlier onset, and longer periods of thermal stratification, combined with lower dissolved oxygen concentrations can have important cumulative and potentially negative effects on aquatic organisms, such as fish.

鈥淭he effects of climate change also interact synergistically with multiple environmental stressors exacerbating problems with water quantity and quality, including salinization, contamination, and the spread of invasive species,鈥� says Smol. 鈥淎s humans can鈥檛 survive without water, a better understanding of how climate change affects lake function is needed along with recognition of early warning signals.鈥�

The researchers hope that recent advances in technology, such as remote sensing and environmental DNA, combined with a move to work beyond traditional silos, will allow for a better understanding of lake responses in the future.

For the United Nations鈥� Sustainable Development Goal of equitable access to clean water to be realized by 2030, the inclusion of diverse voices from researchers worldwide, including the Global South, and the cross-pollination of ideas across disciplines, will be essential.

The paper, , was published today in the journal .

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鈥淭hey paved paradise, put up a parking lot.鈥� Written and sung by Joni Mitchell in the 1970s, those lyrics still hold true today as pavement and concrete structures squeeze out Toronto鈥檚 native bumblebees, say 91亚色 researchers in a new study published today.

The research found areas of the city with the most pavement, roads and concrete, and the highest density of buildings, had the fewest bumblebee colonies.

Corresponding author Professor of the Faculty of Science, along with Associate Professor of the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change and a team of researchers, set out to examine how an urban environment can enhance the health and abundance of pollinators, such as the Common Eastern Bumblebee 鈥� Bombus impatiens.

鈥淲e used genetic techniques to fingerprint bumblebee workers and group them into families and nests, then used triangulation by dividing the city into 270 grid cells to determine where each nest is within Toronto, and how far worker bees had to go from their nest to forage for food,鈥� says Zayed.

Specifically, they looked at landscape, population demography and income in Toronto to determine which features improved habitat quality by noting which areas had the most nests and bees, and the shortest distance to food. Foraging too far away can affect the lifespan of bumblebee workers and the fitness of colonies.

The researchers found bumblebee foraging distance increased and the number of bees in each colony decreased in areas with a higher density of buildings, roads, paved surfaces, bare ground, and humans. But what surprised them, was that the relative density of houses within each grid cell was associated with shorter foraging distances, compared to areas with high density multi-level buildings.

鈥淭he type of urbanization seems to matter. If there are no city parks or watershed forests, those urban areas with a higher density of single or multiple family houses, that would typically have front and backyards, seem to provide better foraging opportunities for bumblebees,鈥� says Colla. 鈥淚t鈥檚 increasingly important to design cities in a manner that sustains and enhances biodiversity and ecosystem services.鈥�

While urbanization had a clear negative effect on both colony density and foraging distance of worker bees, functional (not cosmetic), green space was generally associated with higher quality habitats for bumblebees.

In addition, the researchers found no evidence of a 鈥渓uxury effect鈥� 鈥� the idea that wealthier neighbourhoods are better for bee habitats.

Zayed notes there are several ways Toronto can become more bee friendly. The key, he says, is to create diverse green spaces.

鈥淏y converting boring green spaces, such as grass lawns, into functional green spaces like meadows and pollinator gardens, city dwellers can provide ideal bee habitats,鈥� says Zayed. 鈥淐ities can also convert some of the concrete to green spaces, but parks and forests are also beneficial to pollinators.鈥�

Bumblebees like a variety of plant species, many of which can easily be planted in front yards and backyards, including black-eyed Susan, Canadian goldenrod, New England aster, purple coneflower, willow and various fruit trees and shrubs. These are good for other pollinators as well.

Cities can also seek pollinator-friendly certifications through programs such as Bee City 鈥� 鈥� by pledging to implement actions aimed at protecting pollinators.

The paper, , was published today in the journal .

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