Town of Devon – Climate Risk Assessment & Adaptation Plan

Overview

The Town of Devon received $79,979 for the completion of a Climate Risk Assessment & Adaptation Plan. 

This project was funded by the Government of Alberta, through the Municipal Climate Change Action Centre’s Climate Resilience Capacity Building Program. 

Approach

Located on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River, the Town of Devon offers an abundance of beauty with its river valley, and a distinctly small-town feeling. 

This project was completed to guide climate adaptation and resilience efforts across the Town and provide an adaptation strategy to manage risks and reduce impacts on residents, businesses, and municipal staff. 

The project is focused on all potential climate-related impacts affecting the Town, including impacts to the natural environment, the built environment, the local economy, and the health and wellbeing of residents and visitors. 

An economic analysis was also conducted that supports the business case for adaptation; outlining the costs of inaction and costs resulting from allowing climate change to continue unabated without any interference, as well as the required investment to limit the impacts of these climate risks. 

The Town partnered with All One Sky Foundation to evaluate high priority climate change risks facing the Town and create a robust adaptation strategy to manage priority risks and reduce local impacts.  

This Plan was developed following a participatory approach to climate adaptation planning including a resident Climate Adaptation Survey, several workshops for staff to discuss risk assessment and action planning, and a public engagement opportunity at the Town’s Community Awareness Night.

Results

The Town of Devon’s Climate Adaptation Plan prioritizes the most significant climate impacts facing the community to ensure that the Town can implement cost-effective actions to manage priority impacts.   

The final Climate Adaptation Plan is focused on actions to deal with consequences arising from climate-related impacts that occur directly within the geographical boundaries of the Town of Devon.  

It is a high-level assessment of risk focusing on identifying significant climate-related impacts that affect built and natural assets, and aspects of the economy. The assessment does not consider impacts to specific or individual assets or infrastructure components. 

It identifies 32 climate-related consequences that were assessed as posing a ‘very high’ to ‘high’ risk to the Town, including wildfire smoke, outbreak of invasive species, health waves, meteorological drought, and freezing rainstorms.  

The plan provides seven actions for greater climate resilience within the Town, across the themes of health & wellbeing, built environment, natural environment, and cross-cutting actions.  

Benefits 

Through this project, the Town gained an understanding of the value of embedding climate considerations into decision making and applying a climate lens to all projects to manage the risks. This project allowed for a greater understanding of the breadth of actions within the Town’s control to reduce climate risks. 

The community benefits from this work by having the risks explicitly identified so they can adjust their actions to prepare. This work will help to guide public planning, investment, and policy development to address regional impacts and reduce future costs due to climate events.   

This project will be instrumental in shaping the future adaptive capacity of the Town and its resilience to climate change. 

It is important for Council to be aware of climate threats facing our community. With this plan, we are better equipped to mitigate these future risks through educated and prudent budgeting of various environmental initiatives.

Jeff Craddock, Mayor of Town of Devon