Research projects and publications

The results of this project will be very useful in assisting with the planning of public health measures to prevent human exposure to rabies from foxes in the rapidly changing climate of Nunavik and Labrador.

This project will allow the development of a territorial decision support tool that can eventually be applied to the entire Quebec territory. It will also contribute to increasing the protection and resilience of communities.

This project has advanced our understanding of how hydrological simulations in this type of ensemble must be combined to maximize the information contained in these projections.

This project allows to improve knowledge about the competitive position of Quebec under climate change for three major agricultural sectors, as well as the identification of adaptation measures that could optimize production costs under climate change.

This project made it possible to raise awareness on the magnitude of climate change impacts and the evolution of agricultural land use on surface water quality in the future (2041-2070); and to improve the model used to evaluate the effectiveness of various combinations of agricultural adaptation options to reduce sediment and nutrient transport towards surface waters.

Taking into account both forest productivity and fire risk, as developed under this project, was used by the committee to study the northern limit for forest attribution in Québec as one of the determining criteria for evaluating a region’s potential for sustainable forest management.

This project enabled local forest stakeholders to identify key vulnerabilities and preferred adaptation approaches, and as much relevant information as possible to initiate a climate change adaptation strategy, and to become aware of the strengths in their governance practices that can serve as a foundation for building a possible climate change adaptation strategy.

These results help Québec maple syrup producers develop a vision and a development strategy for the sector, taking climate change into account. The results also help MAPAQ and the Table filière acéricole better adapt their programs and support measures and improve strategic planning for the maple syrup sector in the face of climate change.

This project made it possible to identify economic sectors influenced positively and negatively by climate change in order to devise and implement compensation measures, which may greatly facilitate the implementation of an adaptation program.

This project aims to get an overall view of hydrological drought episodes in southern Quebec in the context climate change by better identifying the meteorological conditions leading to such events and analyzing their prevalence in future climates. The project could pave the way for a hydrological forecast adapted to low water levels.

The study summarizes current knowledge on the probable evolution of deciduous forests in eastern Canada, and can be used as a baseline for future observations. Adapted management of forest resources will make it possible to plan properly, while leaving enough flexibility to adjust to future advances in knowledge.

The study shows that it would be more appropriate then a warning system to consider long-term measures to reduce municipal water consumption throughout the year, along with measures to increase the retention capacity of the watershed.

Analysis of climate analogs can help water managers and decision makers to direct their search for information on adaptation methods towards regions identified as sharing similar climates, and draw upon the most appropriate adaptation measures from among the water use and conservation strategies and programs already being used by particular sectors of activity.

The project helped to provide the Naskapi community with a Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan that applies across four sectors: animals, hunting and travelling on the land, health and well-being, culture and learning.

The participatory approach used in this project made it possible to develop tools that are appropriate for the people who will use them, and at the same time helped strengthen the adaptation capacity of participants.

The maps produced in this project have already been used to select suitable sites for the construction of residential buildings. The results of these analyses were also used in projects to develop tools for improving municipal management.

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.

In the current context of declining caribou populations, the inclusion of climate components in the analysis of space use by the migratory caribou sheds new light on the factors that determine the dynamics of these populations. These factors are being taken into account in the development of management plans.

The approach and the toolbox have been distributed among various major partners in the environmental assessment field, in particular the Commission sur les enjeux des mines uranifères, appointed by the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE).

The project helped to raise awareness among plant health professionals regarding the potential impacts of climate change on crop pests and their natural enemies.

The application and adaptation of the HYDROTEL model to the boreal environment in Quebec will allow Hydro-Québec to better understand past and future hydrological behaviours in these watersheds, and improve the management of hydroelectric production.

This project provided one of the first forums for discussing the analysis of vulnerabilities and opportunities under climate change for forest ecosystem management in Quebec. In particular, we were able to pinpoint the vulnerabilities to consider when using FEM management, and produce a decision-making tool to help managers assess the costs of protecting allowable cut against fire activity, which will increase under climate change.

The results of this study have contributed to an improved understanding of the adaptive capacity of black spruce under climate change, which will help optimize the future management of this species; approaches to forest management that will help reduce climate change impacts on this species; and beginning the development of a tool for predicting the mechanical properties of wood based on the input of environmental data in order to test the impact of climate change on wood formation.

The research suggests that it would be wise to maintain a mix of species, given that they have different responses to the uncertainties in the water balance resulting from climate change. New forest productivity models for calculating timber volumes for harvesting would better capture the relationships between climate, location and growth.

One of the benefits for adaptation from this project is the better knowledge of the CC response and adaptive capacity of balsam fir and black spruce will lead to a deeper understanding of forests and their future productivity (and therefore the amount of wood available), which will guide the management of forest resource harvesting.

The project showed that some coastal communities are already feeling impacts associated with environmental changes. The documentation of some traditional Inuit knowledge was made possible as well as increasing community awareness of climate change issues; and the development of awareness activities for community youth.

The project documented the geomorphic response of the St. Lawrence tributaries to different hydrological conditions ranging from very low flows, to winter floods and very high floods.

This study made it possible to contribute to the reflections of various governmental and non-governmental stakeholders whose role is to encourage the incorporation of climate change adaptation to integrated watershed management in Québec.

This project made it possible to produce information to integrate the influence of climate change into the plans of reconstruction or construction of new power plants the ensure the safety of the equipment; plan for probable changes in extreme flood events in order to benefit from the probable increase in hydroelectric production; evaluate various post-processing methods for climate data, which are essential to various studies leading to adaptation.

The project will provide access to advanced-level climate information that is not available to date, from a regional perspective, for the North.

This project aims to reduce snow-related uncertainty in pan-Canadian projections by leveraging the latest-generation CMIP6 GCM projection data. The research involves the use of a weighting method called ClimWIP to reduce the uncertainty of CMIP6 GCMs based on their performance, with a particular focus on accurately reproducing the annual maximum of the water equivalent of snow.

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.

This project puts forward a technique for parametric post-treatment of extreme precipitation in climate models by operationalizing work already underway at Ouranos and Polytechnique Montréal.

Thermal refugia in rivers are critical habitats during a heat wave for some coldwater fish populations. This project determines the distribution and typology of refugia, in addition to defining the impacts of global warming on these refugia.