The Government of Saskatchewan released its second annual climate resilience report in June 2020 with a suite of measures that demonstrate how resilient the province is to a changing climate.
They were introduced in the first resilience report released in April 2019 and focus on the principles of readiness and resilience to:
- support the province and its people,
- reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,
- prepare for changing conditions – such as extreme weather, drought or wildfire.
The report provides a summary of 25 resilience measures with targets, current status and trends to increase resilience in the key areas of natural systems, physical infrastructure, economic sustainability, community preparedness and human well-being.
The number of measures in ‘good’ status sits at 18 (72 per cent). Some of the highlights in the report include:
- In 2019, the province added approximately 700,000 hectares of protected areas, increasing Saskatchewan’s total protected areas to 6.4 million hectares. This covers 10 per cent of the total land base and includes representation from each of the 11 eco-regions.
- Since April 2019, all forest harvest designs in Saskatchewan incorporate natural disturbance patterns.
- In the past two fiscal years, an additional 81 culverts were upgraded/replaced to meet the new provincial flood standard. This helps ensure the province’s transportation network is more resilient to extreme weather events.
- The energy consumption in our provincial government-owned buildings continued to decrease, as a result of increasing operational efficiency. In both 2018 and 2019, Saskatchewan surpassed its reduction target.
- In 2019, Saskatchewan continued to increase the area of Crown land with wildfire fuel management work. This reduces the risk of wildfire to northern communities. Completion of wildfire fuel management for the remaining areas is expected by 2028, earlier than the original target of 2030.
The province will continue to track and report on the climate resilience measures to help identify areas of further focus and improvement and to better understand Saskatchewan’s resilience to climate change.
More information is available at www.saskatchewan.ca/climate-change.