Research projects and publications

The project helped to strengthen the tools and knowledge available to support the implementation of adaptation initiatives and build closer linkages between the monitoring and evaluation and adaptation communities practice.

This project strengthened the case for climate change adaptation for both government and civil society.

The results of this project will improve the coverage of the observation network for climate, ice, fresh water and wind. They will provide additional knowledge on large-scale atmospheric and ocean actions/interactions.

This project has led to the development of models that will enable our industrial partners Hydro Québec and Rio Tinto, among others, to better manage their equipment stocks in the face of climate variability and changes.

This project made it possible to offer simple procedures and guidelines to support small municipalities in developing their response plans and assessing risk in the context of climate change.

This project provided basic knowledge on trembling aspen and improved our ability to anticipate the impact of global changes on its productivity. This species is important due to its distribution and economic potential.

The results of this project will provide tools to help municipalities better understand the value and means of developing a municipal-level (regional or sometimes local) climate change adaptation plan through a participatory process.

This project gave rise to a better understanding of the dynamics of runoff, water storage and evapotranspiration in a small boreal watershed with a large minerotrophic patterned fen peatland.

An in-depth study of the components of the water balance will fill the knowledge gap on the hydrology of minerotrophic patterned fens and their influence on the production and emission of greenhouse gases.

Upon completion of this project, hydroelectric power resource managers and the authorities concerned with climate change will benefit from a better understanding of the temporal and spatial changes in hydroclimatic conditions, which may facilitate the development of appropriate hydrological scenarios for this climate-sensitive region.

This project allowed a structured reflection to help the Quebec government develop a comprehensive and integrated strategy towards the development of priority actions involved in adapting to climate change rather than scattered initiatives.

This project led to an improved fifth generation Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5) allowing the production of climate change projections to support vulnerabilities, impacts and adaptation projects. This project will improve our understanding of specific processes to be considered for climate change studies.

These four publications deal with the recommendations on floodplain management in the Lake Champlain-Richelieu transboundary watershed presented to the International Joint Commission.

This project focuses on the consequences of extreme events linked to climate change. In particular, the aim here is to analyze the direct link between CO2 emissions and socio-economic impacts such as loss of worker productivity during episodes of intense heat. 

The project has enabled APM to identify the elements of the Montreal port system most vulnerable to climate change on which they can focus their adaptation actions.

This project aims to provide Quebec with a method for estimating the current and future water needs of the main economic sectors while considering the impacts of climate disruption and socio-economic development on water availability. 

This project is making use of well-established collaborations with Mexico and Bavaria in order to allow Quebec to initiate the development of a knowledge base on practices and tools for sharing water when it is limited. 

This collaborative research project encourages small and medium-sized tourism businesses in the Magdalen Islands and the Laurentides region to develop and experiment with climate change adaptation measures.   

This study has made it possible to improve the post-processing tools used and to verify the relative performance of these statistical methods for estimating the biases that exist in climate studies, which may not be constant even over two periods that are very close in time.

This project will offer support for the process of prioritizing public infrastructure components in terms of vulnerability to climate change, based on evidence.

The CRCM5 driven by MPI projects almost no sea ice in the Arctic Ocean in 2100. Furthermore, warming of 22°C is projected until the end of this century. These robust changes can affect the lives of Indigenous people, animals and the whole planet.

This project will enable modeling of future tree distribution, taking into account both the direct effects of climate on reproduction and growth, and the indirect effects on fire activity.

As a result of this research, Quebec stakeholders in crop protection will have the elements needed to launch a climate change adaptation strategy for the sector based on an analysis of the coherence between the actions identified in Quebec’s 2011-2021 crop health strategy and the priority adaptation measures identified during this project.

Agricultural sector users have now access to summary knowledge on climate change and its potential impacts on the agricultural sector. They can access resource documents validated by experts, including an inventory of the knowledge and tools available for dealing with expected climate changes.

The tool developed in this project describes the levels of freedom space and can serve to integrate this concept into municipal and provincial water management policies. The analyses revealed the important role wetlands play in the proper functioning of rivers, especially in the climate change context, and supports efforts to better protect these essential areas.

This project has allowed to increase awareness through regular meetings of the municipal water withdrawers who share the same finite resource. It will allow improved preparedness for expected low flow periods, through a decision support tool that helps municipal users react more
rapidly and equitably. Moreover, it is an approach to monitoring that can be adapted to circumstances other than low flows.

The results obtained for the Yamaska basin will allow the extension of the studies to other basins and could eventually allow the implementation of the methodology within the forecasting system of the Centre d'expertise hydrique du Québec.

The results of this study reinforce the importance of avoiding disturbance of wetlands, which encourages the establishment of the common reed through seed germination, and revegetating any areas disturbed by work in marshes as quickly as possible.

This project reccomands the reduction of the fragmentation of habitats to encourage the spatial reorganization of species; to expand the network of protected areas and to conceive it based on climate change considerations. Moreover, a better system for monitoring biodiversity in Quebec is needed to detect changes and respond to them in time.

This project has revealed that it is to the advantage of the tourism industry to take a proactive leadership role in raising awareness and training; increased knowledge among participants and encouraged decision-making bodies in the pilot regions to adopt a practical approach to climate change adaptation; and shown the need for a support system and regulatory framework for the tourism industry that will encourage better climate change adaptation.

The project helped raise awareness about the health risks related to ragweed for property owners, managers and residents from neighborhoods in the eastern part of Montréal. It also enabled researchers to test the effectiveness of measures such as information mailings to owners of ragweed-infested land in limiting the impacts of ragweed during the pollen season so as to inform decision makers in terms of efforts to be made for heightening awareness.

This project allowed to determine the relationship between climate and mortality in Quebec, using 1981 and 1999 climate and public health data. Moreover, it enabled to estimate future increases in mortality due to climate change.

This project highlighted an higher pollen concentrations during the 1994-2002 period, forecasting an increase in the incidence of allergic rhinitis over the coming decades. Moreover, pollen proliferation appears to be exacerbated by the increase in CO2 concentration and urban sprawl according to this study.

This project allowed to integrate the issue of adaptation to climate change into the curricula of university courses on urban and land use planning, as well as to assess and validate proposed adaptation measures based on criteria regarding feasibility and social acceptability.

This project allowed to raise awareness among the various levels of government and the institutions involved in the development of adaptation policies and actions to the importance of a linkage between the specific needs at the neighbourhood level and the responses and interventions proposed by the municipality.

Collaboration with other research teams doing similar work but at different scales or from a different perspective (societal and territorial vulnerabilities) leads to a more thorough understanding of the issues and effects of adaptation choices.

The aim of this project is to minimize the biases of general circulation models before they are used to drive modelling, thus considerably improving the quality of regional climate model results.

This project allows agronomists and engineers to have access to updated data to help them design hydro-agricultural works adapted to Quebec’s climatic and agricultural context, and to be more aware of the need for taking climate change into account in their practices thanks to a presentation on IDF curves under future climatic conditions given at various selected events.

The Agroclimatic Atlas is particularly useful for managing climate risks and opportunities; supporting decision making for long-term planning at the farm scale and for the entire agricultural sector; raising awareness among agricultural stakeholders about climate change and its impacts.

How can we make Quebec's more resilient to climate change? This project identifies the industries to be targeted and offers possible solutions to better understand all the risks, cascading effects and cross-border impacts on the Quebec economy.

The project results are directly applicable by the stakeholders in the road sector. The percentages of the relative service life span can be considered in the design phase of the road structures in order to adapt the pavements to climate change. The methodology for selecting a frost index adapted to in the design phase that takes climate change into account is also directly applicable by practitioners.

Implementing the design measures described in the guide will contribute significantly to reducing the heat island effects of parking lots. This normative guide can serve to accelerate innovation and become a reference tool for municipalities when drafting regulations or call for tender documents.

This project has presented a preliminary map and hierarchy of the vulnerability of this area that can serve as a valuable decision support tool for the region.

This project highlights the importance for water users to prepare for prolonged dry periods during the growing season, which could lead to increased irrigation needs, especially when recharge is already extremely low.

This study provides perspectives for the development of one or more decision support tools that would enable forest communities to identify priority areas of vulnerability so that they can develop a strategy for strengthening the capacity to adapt to climate change.

The findings of the study helped refine the indicators that are used to better assess future forest productivity. The findings help identify sectors where certain species may be affected in the future and may serve as a basis for certain forest management choices.

The results presented in the Atlas will help actors of the forest sector to better understand the links between the expected changes in climate and ecological impacts; to evaluate the opportunities and the risks associated with climate change for this sector; to better focus future projects on forest ecosystems and more generally on terrestrial ecosystems in Quebec in terms of adaptation to climate change.

The results of this study point out that for the salamanders, it may be more important to monitor anthropogenic activities than climate changes. It also allows to illustrate the relevance of a comprehensive approach to land conservation at the local scale.