Technology can help mitigate disasters like wildfires, SACPA told

While Canadians face the dangers of climate change, their scientists are tracking and reporting its impacts year after year.

One of their tools is aerial Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology, now being used to document changes in Canada’s glaciers, peat lands and Arctic regions.

Used alongside other environmental data collection instruments, two University of Lethbridge researchers say the threedimensional images can help predict and possibly mitigate disasters including wildfires and floods.

“We need to identify where these risks exist,” geography professor Chris Hopkinson told an audience at the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs.

“Monitoring leads to understanding their processes and mitigating their effects.”

Satellite imagery is also useful, he said. Hopkinson also agreed with a questioner that improved drone technology could lead to more applications in environmental monitoring.

Land-based weather stations are another tool, and co-presenter Laura Chasmer explained how she became more involved in LiDAR images taken from an aircraft after a number of university-placed weather stations were lost to the Slave Lake wildfire.

With up to 13 years of data from some locations recorded in 3D form, she said, scientists are realizing how quickly environmental conditions are changing in some places.

Chasmer, who’s also a faculty member of the geography department, described how some peat lands in Alberta and farther north are drying out — and potentially catching fire.

Fighting wildfires has become an expensive operation for Canadians, and she warned it could only get worse.

Alberta’s glaciers continue to melt, Hopkinson pointed out, and snow is covering some rivers’ watersheds for fewer weeks of the year — and then melting faster.

Apart from creating a danger of flooding, he said those changes could also reduce southern Alberta’s water supply. Lethbridge is on the edge of the arid Palliser Triangle, he noted.

“It’s not inconceivable that drought could happen here.”

Even so, he told a questioner, some students in his U of L classes want to deny the reality of climate change.

“It happens in the classroom,” he said. “Some people don’t want to be educated.”

Some scientists and professors are unwilling to speak up on the issue, Hopkinson told another audience member.

“Many academics don’t want to be activists,” realizing their research funding could be cut.

“They don’t need to make enemies.”

He said others, working as much as 100 hours per week, simply don’t have the time or energy to get involved in public debate.

Follow DMabellHerald on Twitter

University of Lethbridge geography professors Chris Hopkinson and Laura Chasmer give their presentation Thursday during the weekly meeting of the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs. Herald photo by Ian Martens @IMartensHerald