Natural Resources Canada’s Climate-Resilient Coastal Communities Program (CRCC) is providing funding to enhance the climate resilience of coastal communities and businesses and accelerate adaptation through integrated regional-scale pilot projects. The CRCC program is co-funding 21 pilot projects on Canada’s three marine coasts — Atlantic, Pacific, and North — and in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence region, representing diverse economic, social and environmental conditions across Canada. The pilot projects take an integrated, systems-based approach to build community and economic resilience to a changing climate. They will bring together partners from all levels of government, the private sector, Indigenous communities and organizations, academia and non-government organizations to co-develop coordinated solutions to climate change risks such as increasing sea level rise, coastal erosion and storm surge in coastal regions.

By taking an integrated approach, the pilot projects will evaluate and implement adaptation actions within the context of complete natural and human systems and account for the dynamic nature of coastal processes across the land and water interface. We know that failing to consider the natural dynamics of coastal systems and broader factors (such as the vulnerability of supply chains, marginalized populations, coastal economies, etc.) can lead to maladaptation or ineffective efforts. More information on the integrated, systems-based approach to adaptation being piloted through the CRCC program can be found in the Good Practice for Integrated Climate change Adaptation in Canadian Coastal Communities that was prepared for the program.