ID: 1944
Presenting Author: Brendon Samuels
Session: 683 - Watershed Intelligence: Integrating Science and Engagement in Impact Assessments
Status: pending
Explore a case study of partnerships between researchers, a conservation authority, private landowners and local government facilitating engagement with nature-based solutions.
The creation and maintenance of green infrastructure projects for climate change adaptation provides opportunities for community partnerships and programming with co-benefits for human well-being and biodiversity. This presentation discusses findings of action research on flood mitigation and education that was implemented on a university campus in partnerships within the institution and with local Indigenous peoples, the regional conservation authority, the municipal government, and the public library. Through participatory workshops, community members applied bioengineering and mixed planting methods to restore a creek bank. Using a combination of oral storytelling, digital media, visual art and community science that integrated perspectives across disciplines and knowledge systems, the creek restoration project is situated within a framework of environmental justice, emphasising specific acts of stewardship to improve watershed health and advance reconciliation. Digital resources and outreach materials disseminate lessons from the project into the community and support similar flood mitigation efforts at local and global scales. The project demonstrates how incorporating private-public partnerships into the design and implementation of nature-based solutions can build cross-cultural ecological knowledge, forge important on- and off-campus relationships, and create place-based opportunities for students to take direct and measurable action on climate change.
Brendon Samuels is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Ecological Design Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University.