This library was made possible with the support of Natural Resources Canada through the Adaptation Platform.

The Adaptation Library is a publicly accessible and searchable collection of community, forestry, and energy related adaptation products. The goal of the Library is to connect community and industry users with relevant information related to climate change adaptation in Canada and abroad.

Adaptation Library Project – 2013

The first iteration of the Adaptation Library included only community-based adaptation resources developed through the Natural Resources Canada Regional Adaptation Collaborative (RACs) and Tools for Adaptation Programs.

The RACs Program was a three-year, $30 million, cost-shared initiative to support coordinated action towards advancing regional climate change adaptation decision-making. It funded the development of resources and tools to help local practitioners and decision-makers reduce the risks and maximize opportunities arising from a changing climate. Under this Program, the Government of Canada invested in six regional adaptation collaboratives:

• The British Columbia Regional Adaptation Collaborative.
• The Prairie Regional Adaptation Collaborative
• The Northern Regional Adaptation Collaborative
• The Ontario Regional Adaptation
• The Québec Regional Adaptation Collaborative
• The Atlantic Canada Regional Adaptation Collaborative

The Tools for Adaptation products were meant to provide a practical, step-wise approach to assess risks and opportunities from a changing climate, and provide guidance for planning and implementing adaptations.

Adaptation Library Expansion Project – 2015

The second iteration of the Adaptation Library saw the expansion of the website to include 100 additional adaptation-based resources and increased user interaction features. In addition to 60 new community based adaptation resources, the library now includes 40 energy and forestry-sector products in an effort to present the issue of climate change adaptation from different focus areas.

The scope of the project was also expanded to include resources from outside of Canada, as well as resources that were not necessarily funded under Natural Resources Canada RAC and Tools division. These included materials from:

• Newly published RAC and NRCan tools not previously included in the Library
• Canadian organizations and universities (e.g. Clean Air Partnership, OURANOS, OCCIAR, University of Waterloo, etc.)
• Provincial governments
• International resources (e.g. US EPA, NOAA, UKCIP, GIZ, World Bank, United Nations, etc.

Additional functionality features were also included in the Library expansion, such as a user upload function, whereby users are given the opportunity to upload other adaptation related resources that were not originally included in the scope of the project. User rating and review features have also been added on each product page, and allow users to provide their own  feedback on how helpful they found the resource to be, and how it may have been applied in their own work. Furthermore, the updated “My Library” feature now allows users to create a login profile and save various resources in their folder to access and consult at a later date.

Community, forestry, and energy products were reviewed using their respective validation frameworks that examined their sustainability, clarity, participatory processes, locality, and replicability. These frameworks are meant to guide users of the Library on when, where, and how products might fit their community or sector-specific climate change adaptation assessment and planning efforts.

The purpose of the validation frameworks is not meant to ascertain whether or not the product succeeds in meeting its objectives, but rather gauge whether it includes elements that make up a comprehensive community or sector-based adaptation project as determined by a group of adaptation practitioners. Products were not validated against one another, but against a framework that was developed after the completion of all products thereby allowing for their comparison against an impartial criteria (i.e. all products were on an ‘even playing field’).

Products were given ‘full marks’ if they fulfilled the criteria (e.g. clear evidence of element in question), ‘half marks’ if the criteria was only somewhat fulfilled (e.g. element in question was only mentioned briefly or partially completed), ‘no marks’ if the criteria was not at all fulfilled (e.g. element in question was not included when it should have been), and “not applicable” was assigned to criteria that were not a necessary element of the product.

We would like to thank the members of the Advisory Committee for their generous donation of time and invaluable feedback. Your input throughout the process of this project was greatly appreciated.

Kevin Behan, Clean Air Partnership

Valérie Bourduas Crouhen, OURANOS

Devin Causley, Federation of Canadian Municipalities

Stephanie Gower, Toronto Public Health

Nancy Hackett, City of Red Deer

Kevin Hanna, University of British Columbia

Elizabeth Henry, Fraser Basin Council

David Lapp, Engineers Canada

RAC & Tools Synthesis Working Group

James Tweedie, Canadian Gas Association

Tim Short, Enbridge

Mike Sullivan, Canadian Institute of Planners

Deborah Hartford, Adaptation to Climate Change Team

Terry Dugit, PRAC

David MacLeod, City of Toronto

Tamsin Mills, City of Vancouver

Debbie Nielsen, Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities

Don Reeves, Province of Prince Edward Island

Gregory Richardson, Health Canada

Nicole Rowsell, Province of Newfoundland and Labrador

Dan Sandink, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction

Brian Montgomery, City of Hamilton

Angela Danyluck, Corporation of Delta

Emily Rideout, Government of Nova Scotia

Jo-Ellen Parry, International Institute of Sustainable Development

Kim Bitterman, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador

Susanne Jakobsen, MOECC

Jason Edwards, Northern Forestry Centre (NRCan)

Note: *Inclusion of a product on this Website does not constitute an endorsement of its content or recommendations by Natural Resources Canada.*