Research project focuses on rural agricultural vulnerability

Posted: April 17, 2014 9:40 a.m.

Dr. David Sauchyn, a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Regina, and a larger international team, are working to help rural communities sustain their livelihood by being less vulnerable to damage caused by extreme weather events.

This work is part of a project called VACEA – Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Extremes in the Americas. Sauchyn, who has been a faculty member at the University since 1983 and is a senior research scientist at the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative (PARC), is a co-director of the VACEA project.

VACEA is a five-year multi-disciplinary comparative study of adaptation to climate change in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia and the Canadian plains, explains Sauchyn. The study aims to advance scientific understanding of extreme weather events and help to determine the impacts of these events on agricultural productivity and indigenous populations.

“We are working with rural communities in Alberta, Saskatchewan and South America to help them deal with flooding, drought and storms as these events seem to be happening more often and with greater intensity,” says Sauchyn.

The project focuses on the vulnerability of rural agricultural and indigenous communities to shifts in climate variability and to the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events.

The $2.5 million research project also includes engaging governance institutions in Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia in enhancing their adaptive capacity to reduce rural community vulnerability.

The project is shared among its many partners and is funded by the International Development Research Centre, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

For more information about VACEA, visit www.parc.ca/vacea.