Climate change and sustainability research at the NRC

A team of researchers from our Aquatic and Crop Resource Development Research Centre is working with the University of Calgary on a project using field peas to help reduce the carbon footprint of Canada's food production systems. Using advanced genomics and phenomics technologies, the team hopes to increase the quality, profitability and resiliency of field peas grown in Canada by making them less susceptible to root rot and drought. The goal is to provide a climate-resilient field pea that offers a crop still rich in protein, with minimal carbon footprint and that holds greater value for the Canadian economy.

Scientists at the Atlantic Science Enterprise Centre are combining machine learning and chaos theory to predict changes in oxygen levels in Atlantic estuaries. Dissolved oxygen levels are important for water quality. Researchers trained models to predict low oxygen events in advance, even in degraded sites. This way, we can be better prepared and take action to protect the estuaries and the plants and animals that live there.

With flood risks increasing, our Ocean, Coastal and River Engineering Research Centre has been conducting extensive testing on the performance of emergency flood protection barriers. This work will provide technology developers with valuable feedback to refine and optimize the design of these barriers, which serve as a last resort to protect people and property in vulnerable areas.

Through our Platform to Decarbonize the Construction Sector at Scale, the Construction Research Centre is working with collaborators to develop new low carbon guidelines, specifications and standards and carry out research that can help inform and advance future regulatory solutions. Ongoing activities include updates to low carbon solutions in the Canadian National Master Construction Specification (NMS) as well as the development of a guideline to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in federally funded construction projects.

We are also conducting collaborative R&D work in areas such as life-cycle assessment for buildings and infrastructure, digitalization and low carbon construction practices and materials.

Our Construction Research Centre's Climate Resilient Built Environment Initiative supports research and development initiatives that help communities withstand natural climate events and climate-related risks. Through Canada's National Adaptation Strategy, the initiative received an additional $30.1 million to expand on its work. Recent projects include pilot studies on resilient building materials, coastal and river resilience and evaluation of flood barriers. In addition, we're conducting new research on wildfire smoke and extreme wind conditions, such as tornadoes.

Teams at our Automotive and Surface Transportation Research Centre's Advanced Manufacturing program have been working to develop high-quality composite prototypes made of thermoplastics and recycled fibres from used clothing. This work is being done in collaboration with other partners:

• The Salvation Army
• General Recycled
• CTT Group
• Environment and Climate Change Canada

The resulting textiles can be used in automotive interiors, packaging and other manufacturing applications. This unique innovation helps reduce textile waste and promotes a circular economy, providing sustainable solutions for these industries.

To better understand how aircraft generate contrails—the vapour clouds produced by aircraft engine exhaust, our Aerospace Research Centre has been working with France's aeronautics, space and defence research lab, ONERA. Using the unique data sets the NRC has acquired from our high-altitude cruise emissions and contrail flight campaigns, we're able to better support ONERA's scientific understanding of contrail generation and cirrus cloud formation. Together, we will publish the results to help the aviation community improve its understanding of contrail generation and its impact on climate.

Our Aerospace Research Centre has been collaborating with Vancouver's Harbour Air on the certification and commercialization program for their Beaver float plane all-electric conversion by providing our expertise on batteries and battery safety. The project, which brought in Critical Systems Labs as a partner, culminated with a workshop involving the 3 organizations in order to understand some of the unique safety considerations and test methods for airworthiness certification that could be needed for an all-electric float plane. This project, which received funding support from the NRC Industrial Research Assistance Program, aligns with our mission to advance sustainable aviation by helping Harbour Air achieve full Transport Canada certification for their all-electric aircraft for passenger-carrying flights.