We argue that there are glaring opportunities to establish a national community of practice and environmental protection. Canada is the only G7 country without coordinated capabilities for predicting environmental risks. It is critical to support collaboration across the provincial, territorial and federal governments and academia and the private sector to strengthen resilience to environmental change.
A proposed solution will enable research and operational groups across Canada to contribute the unique data, information, knowledge and predictive capabilities to support mitigating and adapting to water crises. A co-operative institute will support the development of next-generation capabilities to predict floods, droughts, water quality hot spots, wildfires and ecosystem health.
We propose the creation of a Canadian co-operative institute for environmental prediction, inspired by successful models such as the cooperative institute program in the United States. This co-operative institute would serve as a hub that integrates research across universities, government bodies and the private sector. The proposed co-operative institute is essential to develop the data, information and predictive capabilities crucial for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction.
The proposed strategy outlines key transformations necessary for Canada to emerge as a global leader in environmental prediction. It advocates for a shift from a traditional loading-dock approach to a more strategic focus on critical science and engineering questions. The co-operative institute will modernize the prediction ecosystem for Canada to accelerate the transfer of prediction technologies from research to operations.
The co-operative institute will do this by developing a computational prediction framework that will serve as a shadow system for the operational systems employed by Environment and Climate Change Canada and the provinces and territories, enabling scientists from both the research and operational communities to rapidly develop and evaluate new modelling and prediction methods.
The co-operative institute will also support greater collaboration across academia, government and the private sector, including developing shared computing solutions, establishing a career track for research scientists at universities and developing training and exchange programs.