Engineers Canada is pleased to partner with Risk Sciences International (RSI) to offer this online version of the introductory workshop on the PIEVC Protocol for infrastructure climate risk and vulnerability assessment.
This workshop will provide participants with information about, and practice with Engineers Canada’s PIEVC Engineering Protocol, a practical tool and process that systematically assesses the risks of extreme weather and future climate on public infrastructure. Developed between 2007 and 2012 in partnership with Natural Resources Canada, the Protocol is a structured procedure using standard risk assessment science to assess and fully document the vulnerability of infrastructure to the impacts of current and future climate at a screening level.
The Protocol has been applied to more than 50 infrastructure asset projects across Canada as well as in Costa Rica and Honduras, and other international assessments are currently underway in Brazil, Costa Rica, Vietnam, and the Nile River Basin. The Protocol has been applied to the design of new infrastructure as well as for existing infrastructure in need of rehabilitation or retrofitting. The results of the process inform not only engineers but also planners, managers, and operators to improve their understanding and management of the impacts and risks that public infrastructure faces with extreme weather events and our changing climate.
The PIEVC Protocol is one method accepted by the recently announced Infrastructure Canada Climate Lens to fulfill the climate adaptation considerations for funding infrastructure investments. The workshop will be of interest to engineers and other professionals who are involved in policy, planning, procurement, pre-design, design, operation, maintenance, management and regulation of infrastructure and who, now and in the future, need to consider the changing climate for these activities.
This workshop consists of five (5) two-hour modules delivered through an on-line video-enabled webinar platform, and a one (1) final exam. Presentations and exercises will illustrate real life applications through hands-on, small group exercises using a case study approach that will include developing strategies and recommendations to address the identified climate vulnerabilities.
Upon completion of the workshop participants will have:
- An increased understanding of the increasing costs and liabilities related to public infrastructure as a result of climate change
- An increased understanding of historical climate trends and methods for climate projection, acquisition, and application of climate data as these pertain to infrastructure,
- A basic understanding of risk assessment as applied to infrastructure response to changing climate,
- Hands-on experience with the application of climate change risk assessment for selected infrastructure examples
- First-hand experience at developing strategies and recommendations to address infrastructure climate vulnerabilities
- Recognition of the benefits of a multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder team to address the impacts and complexities of climate change on infrastructure
Our partner Risk Sciences International (RSI) provides clients from both the private and public sectors with the tools and expertise needed to understand, communicate, and effectively manage risk. The firm has extensive and unique experience in those key domains required to help organizations adapt to climate change: applied meteorology, engineering climatology, climate science, hydrology, human health, social and behavioral science, risk assessment and management, and IT-based decision-support.
Fee: $600 (plus applicable taxes)
Fees cover course instruction and presentation materials in pdf format. Participants will be sent information to access the four sessions following completion of registration and payment. Note that this training is intended for individual instruction, and not for groups under a single registration.
Registration deadline is March 15, 2019. The course must have at least 20 registrants by this date to proceed.
For further information please contact:
David Lapp, FEC, P.Eng., IRP
Manager, Globalization and Sustainable Development
Engineers Canada
Ottawa, ON
613-232-2474 x240
613-793-2203 (cell)
david.lapp@engineerscanada.ca
www.engineerscanada.ca
Roger Rempel, FEC, P.Eng., IRP
Director, Climate Group
Risk Sciences International Inc.
Ottawa, ON
613-260-1424 x 106
rrempel@risksciences.com
Workshop Instructors
Heather Auld, MSc
Professional Meteorologist, Climatologist
Technical Lead, Climate and Climate Change
Heather Auld is currently the Principal Climate Scientist, Risk Sciences International (RSI). She has 36 years of experience in the fields of climate, meteorology, climate change adaptation, engineering climatology, and climate services. Heather has extensively researched and developed engineering climate and climate change design values supporting the National Building Code of Canada, Canadian Standards Association standards for water resource practitioners, electrical distribution and communications structures, and mining and northern infrastructure.
Heather has served on expert teams with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the UN Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction. She also represented Canada on delegations to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. She has also helped to lead a delegation of the World Federation of Engineers towards discussions for an MOU with World Meteorological Organization. She has participated in climate adaptation projects across Canada, in many other countries and published many peer reviewed articles.
Neil Comer, PhD
Climatologist – Climate Information Specialist
Neil Comer is RSI Senior Climatologist. Neil has worked in the private sector as an applications engineer/instructor (Weather Services International), in the public sector with the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) and the Adaptation and Impacts Research Section of Environment Canada (EC), and, most recently, in academia (University of Prince Edward Island, Climate Unit). At EC, Neil shared responsibility for developing the Atmospheric Hazards network, and the Canadian Climate Change Scenarios Network (CCCSN), a set of on-line applications supporting the validation and selection of climate change projections for specific climate parameters and geographical locations. He currently serves as climate science advisor to the Ontario Regional Climate Change Consortium and was a reviewer for the IPCC AR5 SREX Report.
Neil has provided analytical services and training to a range of industrial sectors, and been an invited speaker at many international climate change meetings including the Smithsonian, and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and nationally at municipal, provincial, territorial and federal departments across Canada. He currently also teaches webinars to federal government departments on how to apply RSI’s Climate Change Hazards Impact Portal (CCHIP), a tool for readily accessing decision-ready climate data in impact assessment applications.
Simon Eng, B.Sc. (Engineering),
Graduate Certificate in Meteorology
Climate and Engineering content.
Simon Eng is an analyst at Risk Sciences International and has 9 years of experience in both the public and private sectors working in climate and weather services, with a focus on extreme and severe weather and its impacts on the built environment. He has combined degrees in Civil Engineering and Meteorology, knowledge which has been applied and refined through numerous interdisciplinary research projects, including several climate and infrastructure vulnerability assessments across Canada. These have included evaluations of drinking water, storm water and waste water infrastructure, transportation systems, electrical transmission and distribution networks, as well as buildings and other structures. He also has previous experience in both operational forecasting environment, as well as post-event investigation following high impact severe weather events.
Joel Nodelman, B.Sc., M.Sc., P.Eng.
Co-Lead – PIEVC and Engineering
Throughout his career, Joel’s work has had a significant focus on risk management. His activities in climate change adaptation evolved from this focus. Joel was an active contributor to Engineers Canada’s work on engineering assessment of the vulnerability of Canadian infrastructure to climate change. This included technical advisory services to seven vulnerability assessments conducted under the auspices of the Engineers Canada initiative. He has had a central role in the drafting and ongoing refinement of the PIEVC Engineering Protocol for assessing the engineering vulnerability of public infrastructure to climate change.
Joel holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry and an M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering; both from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He is a professional engineer licensed with APEGA.
Roger Rempel, FEC, P. Eng., IRP
Co-Lead – PIEVC and Engineering, Project Management.
Roger is the Director of RSI’s Climate Group and is an environmental engineer with over 25 years of experience in environmental assessment, climate change vulnerability assessment, quantitative risk assessment, environmental systems modeling and public consultation. Roger oversees delivery of RSI’s climate risk analytical and advisory services, including: production of tailored climate and climate change information; forensic investigations of severe weather- and climate-related infrastructure failures; climate vulnerability assessments under several frameworks including Engineers Canada’s PIEVC Protocol and ICLEI’s Building Adaptive and Resilient Communities (BARC) framework, and development of tools like the RSI’s Climate Change Hazards Information Portal (CCHIP).
Roger has worked with Engineers Canada on PIEVC projects assessing critical public infrastructure in Canada and internationally. Roger is an instructor for Engineers Canada’s PIEVC Protocol, conducting workshops to engineers and climate agencies on how to apply the PIEVC Protocol, and has taught these workshops throughout Canada, and in the United States, Brazil, Costa Rica, St. Lucia and Honduras. In June of 2016, Roger became one of the first six Professional Engineers in Canada to achieve Engineers Canada’s new Infrastructure Resiliency Professional certification.
Norman J. Shippee, PhD
Climate and Applications Specialist
Norman Shippee joined RSI as Research Climatologist in January 2017. Norman earned his PhD at the University of Victoria. He is an experienced researcher who has focused on establishing stakeholder-defined storm metrics to facilitate safe operations in the marine transportation field. He has previously provided services to RSI to conduct multiple end-user interviews with provincially owned hydrometric and meteorological network operators to collect station level metadata for the first phase of the Environment and Climate Change Canada Network of Networks. He has also played a role in the Durham PIEVC assessment and helped develop temperature and precipitation relationships in RSI’s CCHIP software.
Norman’s PhD research linked both the physical and human fields by engaging stakeholders through surveys and using the input to develop metrics that bridge meteorological storm definitions and the needs of end-users. His previous research efforts have involved performing quality control and usability checks on large, high-resolution datasets, and working with multiple types of meteorological and hydrological data (satellite, radar, upper air and surface observations, tidal gauges).