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Tracking Climate Change Effects in the Canadian Forest

Canadian Maple Leaf
Webinar recording

Summary

This resource was submitted by the Climate Risk Institute for use by the CanAdapt Climate Change Adaptation Community of Practice.

This article is an abridged version of the original text, which can be downloaded from the right-hand column. Please access the original text for more detail, research purposes, full references, or to quote text.

In this presentation, Dr. Sylvie Gauthier describes two products of the Canadian Forest Service (CFS) Forest ChangeProject:

  • The first is an information report entitled “Tracking Climate Change Effects: Potential Indicators for Canada’s Forests and Forest Sector”.The reportprovides potential climate change indicators and selection criteria to develop a tracking system for changes induced by climate change for Canada’s forests and forest sector.
  • The second product isaweb-based tracking system for the impact of climate change on Canada’s forests and forest sector that is currently under development. The aim of this systemisto increase awareness of on-going climate-induced changes and to inform decision-making for adaptation of the forest sector.

About the speaker:

Dr. Gauthier received a Ph.D. in forest ecology and genetics froml’Université de Montréal in1992. In 1993, she joined the fire ecology and behavior team of the Canadian Forest Service at the PetawawaNational Forestry Institute as a fire ecologist. Since 1996, she has been at Natural Resources Canada’s Laurentian Forestry Centre, where her research interests focus on 1) the characterization of past, current and future disturbance regimes and the factors affecting them, 2) the effect of disturbance regimes on forest dynamics, and 3) the translation of this knowledge into sustainable forest management strategies. Recently, she also started looking at forest management adaptation strategies to face the impact of climate change. She is an adjunct professor atthe University of Quebec in Montreal(UQAM),L’Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT) and Laval Universitywhere she supervises the work of graduate students. She has published more than 90 papers and oversaw the writing of a book on ecosystem management of the boreal forest published in French in 2008 and in English in 2009.

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