RISE team visits Vineland Research & Innovation Centre and Mohawk College’s IDEAWORKS for knowledge exchange

On February 27, Co-Principal Investigators Bruce MacVicar and Derek Robinson and Project Manager Harriet Bigas, joined by UWaterloo colleague Julie Messier from the Department of Biology, visited Vineland Research & Innovation Centre and Mohawk College’s IDEAWORKS.

At Vineland, the RISE and UWaterloo team met with Rhoda DeJonge, Director of Plant Responses and the Environment and lead for Vineland’s Greening the Landscape Research Consortium. The groups discussed their respective areas of research and noted several overlaps between RISE and Vineland research, particularly with regards to identifying trees suitable for urban settings, metrics for ensuring long-term tree growth and sustainable plantings, and tree interactions with soil and water ecosystems in urban environments. Rhoda took the RISE and UWaterloo team on a tour of their soil and substrate research lab facilities where soil properties and water movement can be analyzed, and to their outdoor tree culture park where there are plantings of different tree species in 36 plots mimicking municipal soils for in-depth analysis.

At Mohawk College, the RISE and UWaterloo team were joined by Rhoda to meet with: Andrea Johnson, General Manager at IDEAWORKS; Kate Flynn, General Manager for the Centre for Climate Change Management; Adam Millar, Acting Program Coordinator for the Bay Area Climate Change Council; and Matt Shelley, Professor and Tyler Snowden, Technologist, both with the School of Engineering Technology and Aviation and Uncrewed and Remote Sensing Innovation Centre. The groups exchanged information on their respective areas of research, noting the overlaps and opportunities in technology use and approaches to improving municipal readiness for climate change impacts. This was followed by a tour of the Uncrewed and Remote Sensing Innovation Centre, where the RISE and UWaterloo team were able to view the different drones and autonomous boats used for remote sensing of stormwater ponds, among other applications.

Overall, the knowledge exchanges with Vineland and Mohawk College were valuable to the RISE team by highlighting opportunities for synergies and future collaboration, emphasizing the importance of collaboration among different stakeholders for meeting climate change challenges.