Welcome to the Residential Development Impact Scorecard for the Environment (RISE) project

Aerial view of neighbourhood

Canada is a highly urbanized country with ambitious climate mitigation targets, and yet an ever-growing population will require increased housing – typically through urban infill land intensification or expansion into greenfields for residential developments that results in the loss of green infrastructure.

Urban greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions make up 42% of Canada’s total emissions. What is poorly understood, however, are the contributions from urban green infrastructure – trees, vegetation, wetlands, water bodies and aquatic systems – to mitigating the impacts of climate change.

The RISE project aims to better understand the longer-term impacts of urban residential developments on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and seeks to measure the effectiveness of GHG mitigation efforts of green infrastructure.

Working with our partners, including municipalities and land developers, our hope is to create positive change within the residential planning and development sector that will lead to increased green infrastructure for more sustainable urban development.

News

Opportunities

Research scientist / post-doctoral fellow - Model integration specialist

We are looking for a qualified integrated modeller who will be responsible for ensuring best practices for integration, verification and validation of integrated project models that will be critical in the development of the RISE Scorecard.


Research assistant – Participatory GIS tool developer

We are looking for a qualified GIS specialist research assistant to develop a GIS tool for participatory modelling that will evaluate how changes in residential site plans might change terrestrial carbon sequestration and stormwater runoff in residential developments.