Support a climate-resilient future with your feedback

Residents in Lethbridge have experienced everything from snowstorms in September to 15-degree days in December. The northern Alberta fires this year showed just how costly mother nature can be to communities, livelihoods and municipal infrastructure.

To prepare for the future and build resiliency against extreme weather and changing climate conditions, the City of Lethbridge is working to create a Climate Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan to help guide decision-making, policy setting and organizational actions.

“We’re asking the community through our online survey, how we can best support them in taking actions to ‘weatherproof’ our future,” says Raene Barber, Sustainability Engineer for the City’s Waste & Environment department. “Some of the recommended actions in the survey are things like providing more urban canopies by planting climate-resilient trees along streets. These canopies help provide shade in neighbourhoods and can even reduce the rising temperatures experienced in your home during the summer.”

The recommended actions residents are being asked to weigh-in on were developed with feedback from the Plan’s initial survey which was launched in June this year.

“We want to thank those people who gave their feedback on the vision and guiding principles of the Climate Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan earlier this year. The feedback shaped the strategic direction of the Plan in addition to developing the community risk assessment and the actions we can take as an organization to support our community,” says Barber.

The risk assessment identified the top climate impacts in Lethbridge as:

• extreme heat;
• drought;
• wildfire smoke; and
• ecoregion shift (the introduction of new invasive species and disease-borne pests).

The current survey asks residents their thoughts on suggested actions related to these identified top climate risks. The survey also provides residents with an opportunity to suggest additional actions for consideration in the Plan. This feedback will be considered when prioritizing actions to include in the final Climate Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan.

“We are developing this strategy to identify ways we can better weatherproof our assets and services when an extreme weather event comes our way,” says Mandi Parker, General Manager of the City’s Waste & Environment department. “To ensure we have a plan that aligns with our community’s values, needs and desires, we need our community to share their thoughts about the outlined actions.”

The survey is live on the City’s public engagement website, getinvolvedlethbridge.ca now through to November 29, 2023. The final Climate Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan will finalized and presented to City Council in the spring next year.

For Public Inquiries:

Call 311 | Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.