Coast and Ocean Risk Communication Community of Practice

The Many Faces of Risk - Society For Risk Analysis Annual Meeting 2018
2018-12-02 08:00 - 2018-12-06 17:00 UTC | Marriott New Orleans, 555 Canal St, New Orleans, LA, United States
Join us in New Orleans, LA for this year’s SRA Annual Meeting from December 2-6, 2018 for the premier opportunity to discuss all avenues of risk analysis with other risk enthusiasts from around the globe. This year’s theme, “The Many Faces of Risk,” is intended to showcase inclusion, a cornerstone of SRA and vital to the ability to address today’s most pressing risk issues. The theme underscores the diversity of SRA in terms of the professions, disciplines, methodologies, nationalities, and regions its membership represents. It also highlights the staggering array of topics that SRA members and meeting participants explore in their research and practice.

Webinar: What’s that Sound? Public and Official Perceptions of the January 2018 Tsunami Warning and Evacuation in the Alberni Valley
2018-11-20 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
REGISTER HERE
MEOPAR’s Coast and Ocean Risk Communication Community of Practice (CORC CoP) is excited to host this free webinar, presented by Ryan Reynolds and Alexa Tanner from the University of British Columbia on November 20, 2018 from 10am to 11am Pacific time (Vancouver).
Imagine being woken up at 3AM by a loud siren and verbal warning to evacuate your home because a tsunami is expected to arrive soon. That was the situation the people of Port Alberni faced in the early hours of January 23rd of this year. It had been over fifty years since the Alberni Valley had been devastated by a tsunami following an earthquake in Alaska, and over 10 years since the last warning was issued.
Thankfully, this time there was no tsunami, but for many the events of that morning remain vivid. In this webinar we will talk about the responses we received from over 450 residents and 11 local officials about their experiences, how the event has changed their perceptions of tsunami risk, and what lessons can be learned from the event from a risk communication stand-point.
Check out the Preliminary Report (https://bit.ly/2RgmSej). This research was funded by ICLR (Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction).

Advancing and Empowering Disaster Risk Reduction in Canada
2018-10-29 08:00 - 17:00 UTC
Canada’s Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction will be hosting the Ninth Annual National Roundtable on Disaster Risk Reduction in Vancouver, British Columbia on October 29, 2018. This year’s theme for the Roundtable, Advancing and Empowering Disaster Risk Reduction in Canada, encourages participants to engage in a dialogue to build resilience and advance cross-sector collaboration. The Canadian Risk and Hazard Network’s (CRHNet) Annual Symposium 2018, in addition to the 2018 Emergency Preparedness and Business Continuity (EPBC) Conference, will follow at the same location from October 30 to November 1, 2018.
The Roundtable serves as an inclusive multi-sectoral consultative mechanism to advance disaster risk reduction in Canada. This event is freeof charge and open to all interested participants, including: the private sector, all levels of government, Indigenous peoples, non-governmental organizations, academia and the general public.
We look forward to seeing you in Vancouver!
The Eighth Annual National Roundtable on Disaster Risk Reduction took place on October 23-24, 2017 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The report for this event will be available shortly. Reports of previous Roundtables are also available.
Contact Us
For any further questions or inquiries related to this event, please contact Canada’s Platform Secretariat at:
ps.drr-rrc.sp@canada.ca
Phone: 613-991-9748
#CDNDRR

Online Discussion: From Warning to Protective Action
2018-10-16
More information and register here!
MEOPAR and CORC COP cordially invite you to join an informal online conversation on Tuesday, October 16 at 11:15 am Pacific (Vancouver) to talk about the relationship between warnings, and responses to warnings, and to learn about what factors might improve the chance that protective actions are taken.

Understanding and Modeling Weather and Climate Extremes: Challenges and Opportunities for Science and Society
2018-07-04 15:30 - 16:30 (America/Vancouver) | UVic University House 1, Room 2, 2489 Sinclair Road, Victoria, BC, Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
One of today’s major challenges in climate sciences is how to use our state-of-the-art models and climate system knowledge to inform decision making regarding societal responses to climate change. Among the five key reasons for concern, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), are the risks from weather and climate extremes. Severe impacts could be prevented or alleviated through appropriate adaptation measures and better preparedness.
Weather and climate extremes are influenced by a complex interplay of natural and anthropogenic factors that determine their occurrence, frequency, and intensity. Adaptation planning is challenged to take into account near- and long term variability and changes in weather and climate extremes and associated uncertainties. Two different approaches will be presented to show how the influence of large-scale circulation patterns, such as atmospheric blocking and atmospheric rivers, can be utilized to improve our understanding and simulation of heatwaves and extreme precipitation events, respectively. The uncertainties related to simulations of heatwaves and their dynamical drivers is investigated using large ensembles of state-of-the-art global and regional climate models. For the case of extreme precipitation, a model chain approach from a high-resolution Earth System Model to a convection permitting Numerical Weather Prediction model is employed. Different opportunities to provide impact-relevant information on changes in weather and climate extremes will be presented, which involves, for instance, finding appropriated indicators and incorporating process understanding in extreme value distributions.
Presentation by Dr. Jana Sillmann, Research Director, CICERO

Our Incredible Shrinking Island: Climate Science Public Outreach
2018-06-20 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Vancouver)
Our Incredible Shrinking Island: Climate Science Public Outreach Information Sessions on Prince Edward Island
Live webinar presented by Dr. Adam Fenech, UPEI Climate Lab
The University of Prince Edward Island Climate Lab has undertaken a travelling road show of public information sessions on sea-level rise, coastal erosion and their potential effects on the island province. The lab, which undertakes research on climate change vulnerability, impacts and adaptation, did a similar series of presentations four years ago, but had a strong incentive to visit over eight communities again this year. The first was funding from the Ecology Action Centre. The second was the new science surrounding the rate of sea level rise. For the last 30 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading authority on climate change science, advised planning for a one metre of sea-level rise. The new science says it could be as much as three times that. The star of the show is CLIVE (Coastal Impacts Visualization Environment), a visualization tool developed by the UPEI Climate Lab and Simon Fraser University’s Spatial Interface Research Lab to show the impact of future coastal erosion, sea-level rise and storm surges. Using a game controller, users can fly over a 3D representation of PEI and zoom in on their home or community. They then select different erosion and sea-level rise scenarios to see how they will affect the land. Results of showing CLIVE to PEI communities have proved an increase in knowledge and awareness about climate change impacts; an increase in the concern over these impacts; and a willingness to adapt or “take action.” This webinar will provide more details.

Risk Communication at the Local Level (CMOS Panel Session)
2018-06-14 10:30 - 12:00 (America/Halifax) | Halifax Convention Centre, 1650 Argyle St, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3J 0E6, Canada
Panelists: Max Liboiron (MUN), Rodd Laing (Gov’t of Nunatsiavut), and Alex Zahara (MUN).
Host: Joel Finnis
Research on science and risk communication has consistently emphasized the importance of collaboration between impacted communities (‘publics’) and accredited expert groups (whether government agencies, academia, industry, or NGOs), in order to foster trust and ensure community needs are being accounted for. Although meaningful community collaboration can be difficult to achieve, it potentially avoids problems of one-way expert-to-public communication, which assumes risk is effectively mitigated by increasing public attention to expert knowledge. This ‘information deficit’ communication model privileges accredited expert perceptions of what constitutes relevant, timely, and accessible communication against local expertise and contexts. Communities can differ considerably from experts in their interpretation of these characteristics, beginning with how risks are defined and prioritized. While many agencies have no direct experience of a specific hazard or impacted activities, community knowledge is always a factor when receiving outside information. For example, ‘timely’ monitoring of hazards by accredited experts may be poorly received by communities that prioritize prevention, especially when hazards are understood by communities to be long-term and ongoing (e.g. the “event” of methyl mercury contamination as a consequence of hydro-electric development against a long-term trend of extraction and encroachment). Finally, efforts to improve ‘accessibility’ often focus on delivering streamlined, simple messaging around nuanced problems; this can become an issue when communities are accustomed to navigating complexity, and are aware that higher level information exists but is not disseminated. These disconnections are less likely to occur if communities and risk-related agencies actively collaborate on research and risk communication/management planning. These concerns, and ways forward, will be addressed in a panel discussion, with input from social/natural scientists and environmental managers, sharing lessons drawn from their recent collaborations on plastic pollution, sea ice stability, Muskrat Falls flooding and contamination, and wildfire management.
