Resources: Guidebooks, Papers and Methodologies
Numerous guidebooks, papers, and methodologies exist, and more and more are published each day. Filtering through them is not easy. Kimberley and Elkford did not follow any one particular guidebook but used ideas from several. Local coordinators and advisory committee members highlight the four listed below as the most useful.
Recommended Guidebooks/Methodologies/Examples
Preparing for Climate Change: A Guidebook for Local, Regional and State Governments, September 2007.
This text is designed to help local, regional, and state governments prepare for climate change by recommending a detailed, easy-to-understand process for climate change preparedness based on familiar resources and tools. This book was jointly developed by the Climate Impacts Group (University of Washington) and ICLEI. It is often referred to as the CIG Guidebook. It is great background reading. Both Kimberley and Elkford have been using it to guide their local processes. It uses a vulnerability/risk approach.
Adapting to Climate Change – A Risk-Based Guide for Ontario Municipalities, December 2006.
Several folks familiar with these processes recommend this book. However, it's advised it may need simplification for rural BC communities. There is a draft BC guidebook being tested in the spring/summer of 2009. Elkford used this in addition to Preparing for Climate Change (above) in their process.
CIER Climate Change Planning Tools for First Nations, August 2006.
This is a series of six guidebooks on climate change planning for First Nations. Each guidebook focuses on an important part of the planning process and leads into the subsequent guidebook.
Visit each guidebook link to review the topic of interest to you.
- Guidebook 1: Starting the Planning Process (661 KB)
- Guidebook 2: Climate Change Impacts in the Community (863 KB)
- Guidebook 3: Vulnerability and Community Sustainability (1,107 KB)
- Guidebook 4: Identifying Solutions (1,106 KB)
- Guidebook 5: Taking Adaptive Action (755 KB)
- Guidebook 6: Monitoring Progress and Change (432 KB)
The City of Keene, Adapting to Climate Change: Planning a Climate Resilient Community. November 2007. This community in New Hampshire (pop.25,000) prepared an extensive adaptation plan. This report is recommended by Ingrid Liepa, Kimberley Local Coordinator and Cindy Pearce, Advisory Committee member, particularly the section on "lessons learned." It was a collaborative effort from the City of Keene and ICLEI. Methodology appears similar to the CIG Guidebook mentioned above. Note: This is not a guidebook, but it gives an idea of what a plan includes.
Keene Summary_ICLEI_FINAL.pdf 2.6MB Summary
Keene Report_ICLEI_FINAL v2.pdf 4.2MB Complete Report
Environment Canada, Canadian Communities Guidebook for Adapting to Climate Change, 2008.
This guidebook was created by the Adaptation and Impact Research Division (Environment Canada) and Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (University of British Columbia). It emphasizes the importance of being proactive in creating responses that prepare communities for future climatic, policy and development challenges. It also provides additional reference materials, including: information on how to interpret the consequences of climate change; an extensive list of adaptation options available; a list of other published guidebooks; and several other resources available for consultation.
This toolkit outlines an adaptive management process and provides a set of tools and exercises meant to assist councils. The tools range from simple and self-directed templates to more complex exercises. The toolkit suggests how and when to use each of the included tools as a complement to the adaptive management process.
Useful Papers
This paper reviews the concept of adaptation of human communities to global changes, especially climate change, in the context of adaptive capacity and vulnerability. The main purpose of participatory vulnerability assessments is to identify adaptation strategies that are feasible and practical in communities. The distinctive features of adaptation analyses with this purpose are outlined, and common elements of this approach are described.
This paper proposes a method to guide vulnerability assessments of coupled human–environment systems toward a common objective: informing the decision-making of specific stakeholders about options for adapting to the effects of global change.
Practical Innovations in Stormwater Management 2009 pdf 858KB
This paper highlights practical innovations in stormwater management at the property, neighbourhood and watershed scales. It is co-authored by Hans Schreier, UBC Professor and CBT Advisory Committee Member (2008-2009).
Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation: A Canadian Perspective 2007 htm
Prepared by Natural Resources Canada, this report provides an update to the Canada Country Study by focusing on research conducted between 1997 and 2002. A considerable amount of work has been completed on climate change impacts and adaptation during this time. This work is due in part to the attention generated by the Canada Country Study, as well as targeted research funding programs and international initiatives, such as the reports of the IPCC.
For more resources specifically used in Kimberley or Elkford scroll to the bottom of the respective Case Study pages.
For Kimberley's extensive list of resources on water, forests, municipal intrastructure and tourism.