ESSA’s Jimena Eyzaguirre Appointed as a Member of the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) Expert Panel on Natural Disaster Resilience

Jimena Eyzaguirre was appointed as a member of the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) Expert Panel on Natural Disaster Resilience.

Spring 2019 flooding in Ottawa, Ontario. Photo by Jimena Eyzaguirre.

The distinguished, multidisciplinary panel is comprised of 13 members from across Canada with extensive expertise, experience, and leadership in emergency management, disaster risk assessment, preparedness and prevention; and climate adaptation. Together they will explore opportunities to enhance the resilience of Canadian communities by better integrating climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction efforts, and ultimately answer the following question (as posed by Public Safety Canada) in an assessment report:

What key opportunities exist to improve disaster resilience in Canada through better integration of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation research and practice?

The assessment resulting from the work of the CCA Expert Panel will undergo an extensive peer-review and approval process prior to release in 2021.

The Expert Panel is chaired by Scott Vaughan, Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Sustainable Development and Former Federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. Joining Jimena on the panel are fellow adaptation and climate experts and ESSA collaborators Alain Bourque, Executive Director at Ouranos, and Roger Rempel, Associate at Dillon Consulting.

The CCA is an independent, not-for-profit organization that supports evidence-based, authoritative, expert assessments that inform public policy development in Canada. They have undertaken more than 50 assessments over the past 15 years, the vast majority of which were requested by federal departments and agencies.