Edmonton September Luncheon: The Challenge of Climate Change

CPANS is pleased to announce the start of the Edmonton luncheon series for the 2016-2017 season. This year we will have eight speakers and the theme of this season’s Edmonton Luncheon series is “Climate Change Impacts and Threats”.

September Luncheon Topic – The Challenge of Climate Change for Built Environments: Identifying Climate Change Risks and the Need for Resilience Planning

Friday, September 09, 2016

Climate change means Alberta will experience shifts in both the climate ranges and extreme events that define the operating environment for the design, operations and maintenance activities for critical public infrastructure and the built environment. Designs for our infrastructure investments will need to operate safely and reliably under these emerging shifts, and will need to cope with increasingly frequent and higher intensity extreme events resulting from climate change. That can only happen if infrastructure is designed with an understanding of climate-induced impacts and taking proactive measures to reduce impacts from emerging climate risks.

Join us for a discussion on the challenge of climate change for engineers and asset managers. We’ll cover how climate-induced risks translate from the natural operating environment to infrastructure impacts, the multiple motivators for design professionals to manage these climate risks, and an overview of Best Practices to assess and manage climate induced risks to the built environment.

Presenter: Roger Rempel, P. Eng. FEC, IRP, Senior Environmental Engineer, WSP Canada

Roger is an environmental engineer with over 20 years of experience in environmental assessment, climate change vulnerability assessment, quantitative risk assessment, environmental systems modeling and public consultation.
Roger has conducted climate change impact assessments and served as technical advisor to a number of multi-disciplinary study teams assessing public infrastructure and related components for vulnerability to climate change impacts and extreme events. He conducted climate change impact workshops for Canadian impact assessors to define climate data requirements for modelling practitioners within Canada’s Prairie Regional Adaptation Collaborative (PRAC), and has conducted scoping assessments and pilot applications of new climate change impact assessment tools for municipal planning, water demand forecasting and extreme runoff management.

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 internationally in the United States, Brazil, Costa Rica, St. Lucia and Honduras. Roger’s work in engineering assessment of critical infrastructure for impacts related to climate change has been conducted in Canada, the U.S.A., the Caribbean and Central America.

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.

About the Luncheon

The luncheon is scheduled for Friday, September 09 2016. The luncheon will be a short reception followed by a buffet lunch.

Location: The University of Alberta Faculty Club (11435, Saskatchewan Drive), Papaschase Room (upstairs, right)
Date: Friday, September 09, 2016
Time: 11:30 to 1:00 p.m. (registration starts at 11:30)
Cost: $30 – A&WMA Members / $40 – Non-Members / $15 – Students (includes hot lunch & coffee). All prices include GST.
Contact e-mail – Madhan.Selvaraj@wspgroup.com or call (780) 660 1250 if you like to attend the event.

The U of A campus is accessible by light rail transit and bus. A map of the campus is available at: http://www.campusmap.ualberta.ca/. You are encouraged to use public transit or ride-share. Parking is available in the V-Lot (coin and credit card, $2 for the lunch hour) and Windsor ($1 for 15 minutes).