Supporting UBC Campus Landscapes and Food Systems during Extreme Weather Events
Creators: name: Tahami, Hannah
name: Seow, Kat
name: Alirezae, Farbod
name: Henriksson, Liliana
Publisher: name: The University of British Columbia
Year: 2024

description: Unsustainable human activities are intensifying the effects of global warming through the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHG). These GHG emissions have caused the global surface temperature to increase by 1.1°C between 2011-2020 compared to the temperature between 1850-1900 (IPCC, 2023). The Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasizes with high confidence that human-caused climate change greatly influences extreme climate and weather across the globe. Extreme weather events cause losses and damage to nature and people, leading to consequences such as decreased food and water security (IPCC, 2023). With a growing global population placing increasing pressure on agricultural systems to maximize production, measures must be taken to reduce the risk imposed by extreme climate and weather. We need to prioritize mitigation and adaptation strategies (Fróna et.al., 2019; City of Vancouver, 2012; 2020). Localizing food production can help support community food security and literacy (Ziervogel &amp; Ericksen, 2010). Consequently, the purpose of our research was to identify strategies to increase the climate resiliency of food systems and landscapes at the UBC Vancouver Campus. This was accomplished through a literature review, field research on the microclimates of four garden sites and group interviews with gardeners and garden managers. The previous iteration of this project identified climate-resilient food plants suitable for growth to support climate-ready food gardens at the UBC Vancouver campus (McLeod et al., 2023). We expanded on this project by addressing the knowledge gap regarding management strategies focused on the impacts of extreme weather events. Specifically, we addressed the events of heat domes, cold snaps, high winds and flooding. Our research expanded past food-plant production to include the broader ecosystem, microclimate, and community aspects. Our literature review focused on how extreme weather events affected food availability in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, with emphasis on the significance of food sovereignty. Gillett and colleagues (2022) define food sovereignty as a concept that stresses the importance of everyone having the right to healthy and locally suitable food that is produced in an environmentally friendly way. The review of policy documents and peer-reviewed sources revealed significant gaps in policy, in particular that UBC is lacking a specific strategy to address extreme weather events for campus food growing activities. It was suggested that bringing communities together and allowing them to be more involved in planning and managing local gardens, will help improve resilience to extreme weather and reduce food insecurity (Drolet, 2011). Sohail and Chen (2022) emphasize the importance of gathering detailed climate data to improve the current understanding of extreme weather to better overcome challenges presented by them. Using the principles of Community-Based Action Research (CBAR), our research and recommendations prioritized the inclusion of key stakeholders and community members in every stage of the research process focusing on identifying and bolstering the existing strengths within the community (Gullion &amp; Tilton, 2020). We recommend that UBC Campus and Community Planning along with our clients, the UNA and Botanical garden, distribute our toolkit to campus food growers. We also propose the development of an in-person campus food garden networking opportunity through workshops to improve communication and share knowledge between campus food growers to increase community resilience to managing the impacts of extreme weather events. We recommend that future SEEDS delves deeper into prolonged microclimate assessments of more campus locations, looking into plant breeding to breed more climate-ready crops, and extending research regarding our campus food gardens and their future regarding managing more severe and often extreme weather events. A UBC Climate-Ready Toolkit (Appendix D) was developed based on findings from our research in addition to a publication of this report to the UBC SEEDS library. This UBC Climate Ready Toolkit contains an audit of four garden site microclimates and a framework on how to collect microclimate data, information on the potential impacts of extreme weather events on UBC gardens and a management plan to build local resilience to extreme weather events. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”