The ACCESS-BoFEP 2026 Conference program is available here
Abstract
Coastal communities experience the adverse effects of climate change directly, e.g., sea-level rise and flooding. Local governments often have difficulty in considering the range of evidence related to the impact of climate change on their coasts. Yet much of the research on how science is incorporated into policy has focused on provincial/state, national, and international levels. In this presentation, we will highlight the current work of the Dalhousie University Environmental Information: Use and Influence research group, which over the past decade has been examining challenges experienced at the science-policy interface. Funded through Transforming Climate Action, we are investigating how ocean-climate action and policy can be transformed through better understanding of local communities, by focusing on the enablers and inhibitors of the flow of information and its use in climate policy development and implementation. We will outline our initiatives to ensure the research is grounded in the experiences of the policy and practitioner communities. We will describe a workshop we facilitated with 12 coastal adaptation practitioners in Nova Scotia, and how we are using the results to co-produce our research. The results have informed a protocol for a systematic map of the academic and grey literature on the use of evidence in local governance to support climate action. Additionally, the workshop results have informed the design of a case study of the Lunenburg County’s coastal municipalities, in which we will examine how municipal planners and policy-makers identify, interpret, and include information in their efforts to deal with the effects of climate change.
Citation
Toze, S., Legault, A., Keast, E., & MacDonald, B. H. (2026). Co-producing research: How do local communities use evidence to inform coastal adaptation policies?. ACCESS/BoFEP Conference, Sackville, New Brunswick, 19-22 May 2026.
Related Blog Post
Belen, A., Emery Webster, A., Keast, E., Legault, A., Margeson, K., Martinez Calderon, D., & Toze, S. (2026, June 25). “Connecting Communities to Ocean Science”: ACCESS-BoFEP Conference, 19-22 May 2026. EIUI Blog. https://eiui.ca/connecting-communities-to-ocean-science-the-access-bofep-conference-19-22-may-2026/