City of Red Deer – Corporate Climate Change Adaptation Plan  

Overview

The City of Red Deer received $78,201 in grant proceeds for the completion of their corporate Climate Change 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

With a population of over 100,000 people, The City of Red Deer provides services to the community including recreation, utilities, and infrastructure maintenance. Roughly 1,600 employees work to ensure that the organization’s assets, services and operations are run efficiently and safely.  

With the contracted services of All One Sky Foundation, a non-profit organization, The City initiated the development of a climate adaptation strategy to better understand the direct climate-related impacts affecting The City’s assets, services, and operations.  

The climate risk assessment and adaptation planning process involved a collaborative cross-departmental effort to ensure that all considerations were identified while developing the strategy.  

Through a series of meetings, facilitated workshops, and review sessions, the project team was able to provide critical input on how climate change may affect their operations within the organization.  

Results

All One Sky Foundation completed a risk assessment to evaluate the climate risks that The City is facing and developed a high-level climate adaptation strategy to manage priority risks and reduce the impacts to City-owned assets, services, and operations.  

The strategy identified a total of 71 climate impacts, of which 28 were identified as high risk and 7 were identified as very high risk. Priority climate risks include wildland-urban interface fires, river and creek flooding, and hailstorms.  

These high and very high-risk climate impacts were carried forward into the action planning phase, which recommends 20 adaptation actions targeted at increased resilience within the organization. 

Benefits 

The goal of the strategy is to support The City in taking collaborative action and build on existing initiatives to enhance the climate resilience of the City’s assets, services, and operations to best serve the community. 

Understanding which of their assets, services and operations are most at risk will enable The City to better plan for the future. As service providers, the City recognizes the importance of building resilience within the organization in order to continue meeting the needs of the community in the future. 

The strategy will support The City in prioritizing investment in actions that will have co-benefits for both the organizations and the community in building resilience.  

“Our Climate Adaptation Strategy helps to ensure The City of Red Deer is prepared and protected against future climate-related impacts. Red Deer is committed to taking collaborative action and building on existing initiatives in line with the goals and targets of The City’s Environmental Master Plan.” 

Sarah Tittemore, Community Services General Manager 

“The climate risk assessment helps us better understand the potential impacts to The City’s infrastructure and natural assets. The Strategy provides a roadmap for how we can improve the climate resilience of The City’s assets, services and operations to better serve our community.” 

Greg Sikora, Parks & Public Works Manager