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The article describes the development of the web-based Canadian Forest Service climate change indicator system, referred to as the Forest Change Tracking System. This indicator system was established in 2011 with financial support from the Adaptation theme of the Government of Canada Clean Air Agenda. The objectives of the Forest Change Tracking System are to (a) raise awareness and inform on the occurrence and scope of ongoing changes across Canadian forests associated with climate change and to (b) support the inclusion of adaptation into forest management planning and forest-related policies. The development strategy was to focus on a limited number of most relevant indicators and to build on existing capacity in order to produce information on current and future climate change impacts across Canada's vast forests. An initial list of 141 potential indicators relevant to forestry was compiled through a series of workshops with more than 100 researchers and forest sector stakeholders and through a global scan of climate change indicator initiatives. A rating system based on each indicator's potential relevance, sensitivity, and feasibility of measurement was used to select a subset of 35 indicators. These indicators fall within three broad systems—climate, forest, and human. Each indicator web page contains information on the relevance of the indicator, graphs, or maps on past trends and future projections across Canada and related links and references. This paper also presents lessons learned, discusses challenges and opportunities, and reviews potential next steps related to the broadening of this indicator system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is a likely addition to the unpredictable challenges urban communities will face. Enhancing urban forests has gained prominence as a climate adaptation tool in cities. The fact that urban forests are also vulnerable is now starting to emerge. Many urban forest management professionals do not know how to take climate change into account and what aspects of urban forest vulnerability to climate change to prioritize. Bringing climate change to the forefront of the decision-making process in urban forest management, and urban forests to the forefront of urban climate issues, is important to urban forest success. This paper presents an exploratory assessment of vulnerability to climate change in the Canadian urban forests of Halifax, London, and Saskatoon. The objectives of the assessment were to: 1) identify the elements of urban forest exposure and sensitivity to climate change, the nature of the expected impact, and the adaptive capacities that exist in these three urban forests; 2) assess which of these elements contributes more to urban forest vulnerability to climate change; and, 3) elicit adaptive strategies based on this information. The method used was participatory and expert-based and allowed for a systematic evaluation of vulnerability. Exposures related to drought, heat stress, and wind, susceptibility of urban trees to insects and diseases, and the sensitivity of young trees and tree species with specific temperature and moisture requirements, are the main concerns regarding the vulnerability of urban forests to climate change in these three cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the Web of Science Core Collection databases from 1990 to 2018, a scientometric analysis of 1,284 academic works related to forest carbon sequestration is carried out to characterize the intellectual landscape by identifying and revealing the basic characteristics, research power, intellectual base and research hotspots in this field. The results of this work show that: ① the number of publications in forest carbon sequestration research has increased rapidly and the research in this field is in its "growth stage"; Forest Ecology and Management is the most productive journal and Forestry is the most popular subject category; ② the most productive authors and institutions in this subject area are in the USA, China and Canada, with the Chinese Academy of Sciences being the key institution performing such research; ③ in the sample, 9 papers have played a key role in the evolution of the field and laid a solid foundation for future research; ④ Keyword clustering analysis showed that the main research topics in the domain of forest carbon sequestration could be summarized as: (a) temperate forest; (b) forest management; (c) uncertainty analysis; (d) forest floor; (e) REDD; (f) net primary productivity. Meanwhile, keyword bursts analysis showed that the new research hotspots or research frontiers mainly concentrated on changes in the carbon storage and carbon sequestration potential of secondary forests and tropical forests, plant litter carbon storage and contribution to total ecosystem carbon storage, and new national forest inventories (NFIs). Through in-depth analysis of forest carbon sequestration research, this paper provides a better understanding of development trends that have emerged in this field over the past 29 years, which can also offer reference for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to evaluate whether future climate change would trigger an increase in the fire activity of the Waswanipi area, central Quebec. First, we used regression analyses to model the historical (1973–2002) link between weather conditions and fire activity. Then, we calculated Fire Weather Index system components using 1961–2100 daily weather variables from the Canadian Regional Climate Model for the A2 climate change scenario. We tested linear trends in 1961–2100 fire activity and calculated rates of change in fire activity between 1975–2005, 2030–2060, and 2070–2100. Our results suggest that the August fire risk would double (+110%) for 2100, while the May fire risk would slightly decrease (–20%), moving the fire season peak later in the season. Future climate change would trigger weather conditions more favourable to forest fires and a slight increase in regional fire activity (+7%). While considering this long-term increase, interannual variations of fire activity remain a major challenge for the development of sustainable forest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]