Prioritizing Nature in Climate Adaptation

The City of Saint John, New Brunswick is known for its location on the Bay of Fundy, where the world’s highest tides meet the Wolastoq. The vast coastline, forests and freshwater ecosystems that make up the City provide ecosystem services that make Saint John a beautiful and resilient place to live. These services can be advantageous to the municipality for their role in managing water levels, mitigating temperature, and creating habitat and biodiversity. As our climate changes, the City of Saint John is faced with challenges like sea level rise and increased storm events, increasing the vulnerability of communities and infrastructure along the coast.

This project explored the impacts of changing climate on the natural environment by identifying and assigning value to existing natural assets, and developing a roadmap to protect, enhance and restore the function of these assets in the future. A natural asset inventory identified the types of natural assets located on municipally-owned property, size and the climate risks to each asset. This project also identified gaps in legislation, areas where natural assets are supporting traditional infrastructure, and areas where natural assets could be enhanced. This information was provided to City of Saint John staff to implement into their already existing asset management structure.