Funded with a Mitacs Grant from 2018-2021, each year, four summer research internships were offered at firms for students to gain professional skills, while also co-developing methods and projects related to coastal adaptation for outreach to governmental agencies and the public. The FRDC aims to shift the discussion around sea level rise adaptation from one primarily seen as an engineering challenge, to one centered on the possibilities of design to address issues of spatial justice, resilience, and multifunctional landscapes. The FRDC stresses the multi-functional potentials of landscape based approaches to SLR while working to advance collaborative, cross-jurisdictional planning and design approaches in a context where federal and provincial governments have downloaded responsibility for flood-risk management to individual municipalities with no mediating body.

Th FRDC seeks to move between problem-setting and problem-solving through the development of visual methods of communication in order to provide important practical knowledge and guidance in response to the impacts of sea level rise in coastal areas. We aim to challenge the status quo and inform different flood management paradigms.

As suggested by Michelle Covi and Donna Kain: “communicating climate change-related risks involves making complex information accessible, relevant, and salient to people who have been exposed to contradictory and confusing information.”

As such, the FRDC focuses on presenting information regarding sea level rise risks in a variety of ways, focusing on multiple issues, stakeholders, and perceptions. In so doing, we hope our work allows for critical reflection and discussion, and ultimately support communities in making more informed decisions about future flood management and interconnected issues.