Grant: Alliance Grants

This proposal aims to evaluate feasibility of Carbon Capture by Boreal Afforestation in Canada and its capacity to help achieve net-zero emission mandate for 2050. Canada has a large potential for afforestation solutions; however, significant uncertainties remain as to whether these potentials are achievable due to the lack of existing knowledge with respect to how much tree cover might be possible under current and evolving climate conditions and how coverage may be location dependent. Boreal afforestation needs to involve First Nations residents and seek to fuse their traditional knowledge with western science into a coherent body of knowledge. Furthermore, it needs to ensure the HQP training of First Nations and Métis engineers to offer the fused forest management to the next generation through engineering schools like U. of Saskatchewan and the First Nations University of Canada (federated with U. of Regina). Our preliminary estimations indicate that a significant amount of greenhouse gas can be captured through assisting the natural process of afforestation in a warming arctic and this project intents to study at a detailed level and reduce uncertainties enabling a gradual tree-line advancement of the northern Boreal Forest and Tundra regions. The main goal of the project is a comprehensive evaluation of Boreal and Taiga afforestation Carbon Capture capacity. It will include technical and socio-economic analysis at regional and national scales with ultimate goal to create a viable tool in achieving Canada net-zero emission mandate taking account of the Indigenous Traditional Knowledge. The project team is drawn from a cross-section of Canadian universities: University of Waterloo, University of Saskatchewan, École Polytechnique Montréal, First Nation University of Canada, Université de Sherbrooke, McGill University and The Canadian Academy of Engineering. Techaero, a First Nation led Canadian based SME, is an industrial Partner for this project, it will devote 10 hours a week to the project as an in-kind contribution helping in overall project management, as well as contributing intellectual property. All team members listed above have extensive relative experience to carry out such scale of proposal.