Pilot project aims to help Okanagan residents deal with climate change

The Okanagan Basin Water Board (OBWB) is in the process of releasing building a pilot project that will help residents and local governments understand impacts of climate change in the region.

Using historical data that goes back as far as the 1930’s, the OBWB is able to track weather trends, lake inflows and snowpack levels throughout the Okanagan valley. With the help of global climate models, they are also able to gain an understanding of how climate change will affect the area.

“There’s been a number of extreme weather events — I think the weather in 2021 was the biggest wake up call,” said OBWB executive director, Anna Warwick Sears.

“We don’t really know what the future will bring, so this is going to help us get a sense of where we might be going.”

The board has hired an intern with a degree in climate science and communications, who will use this data and evaluate how certain trends in the region have changed over time. The next step will be to build a website, to share these findings with the public.

“We want to have a public-facing website where people can look and see the trends themselves, and have it set up so that it can be updated regularly as we get new weather information or lake flow information,” explained Warwick Sears.

“We’re at the very beginning stages of this project right now.”

By accessing this website, Warwick Sears adds that residents will be able to make decisions based on how climate change will impact them directly.

“If you are growing a garden, you would be really interested in knowing, ‘Well, it looks like we’re starting to have lots of dry days in the summer,’ it’s also important when we’re looking at things like flood risk, you know, do you live near a creek that might be inclined to flood,” expressed Warwick Sears.

“All this climate stuff really affects our day-to-day lives.”

The new intern is set to start this summer, and the OBWB expects to have their new site operating by the end of 2023.