Project Description

​VACEA addresses a gap in the current understanding of the consequences of global climate change for regional climate variability and extremes and the resulting vulnerabilities of agricultural and indigenous communities. Our goal is to provide new knowledge to strengthen the capacities of governance institutions and rural populations in Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia to adapt to shifts in climate variability and the frequency of extreme events. The research framework, based on a vulnerability assessment model, actively engages stakeholders and directs all research activities towards evaluating past, current and future exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, and applying this new knowledge to the design of improved adaptation strategies. The interdisciplinary research program will have three major themes: 1) Regional Vulnerability Assessment, 2) Climate and Agro-Ecological Variability, and 3) Integrative Risk Analysis.