Climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability
Associate Professor in the Department of Geography
CIHR Applied Public Health Chair
Office: Burnside Hall Room 311
Tel.: (514) 398-4960
Fax.: (514) 398-7437
Website
james.ford [at] mcgill.ca (E-mail)
Academic background
- PhD Geography (2006), Department of Geography, University of Guelph.
- MSc Environmental Change and Management (2001), Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, UK.
- BA Geography (2000) Dept. of Geography, University of Oxford, U.K.
Research interests
I am an assistant professor in the department of geography where I lead the Climate Change Adaptation Research Group. I am originally from Manchester, England, and did my BA and MSc at Oxford, PhD at Guelph, before moving to Montreal in 2006. My work takes place at the interface between climate and society, and I am particularly interested in climate change vulnerability and adaptation. I lead a diversity of initiatives in this area, including projects focusing on Indigenous peoples and climate change (with a major focus on the Arctic), developing adaptation plans with communities and industry, and examining ways to create ‘usable’ science. Resource management, natural hazards, and health, are overarching topics within these themes. Along with my colleagues, I am also developing novel approaches to tracking climate change adaptation at global and regional levels, developing systematic review approaches in an environmental change context, and I am involved in adaptation monitoring and evaluation debates. I am currently an editor at the journal Regional Environmental Change, and have contributed widely to the human dimensions of climate change scholarship. You can read more about my academic work and contributions on my website: www.jamesford.ca
Current projects
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Indigenous health adaptation to climate change (IHACC: www.ihacc.ca): IDRC and Tri-Councils IRIACC Program
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Indigenous knowledge for adapting to the health effects of climate change (IKADAPT: www.ikadapt.ca): CIHR Aboriginal Health Intervention Grant
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Climate change and food security among at-risk populations in regional Inuit centres: ArcticNet
See: http://www.jamesford.ca/research for a full listing
Some recent publications
Ford, J. (2012). Indigenous health and climate change. American Journal of Public Health 102 (7), 1260-1266.
Ford, J., et al. (2011). A systematic review of observed climate change adaptation in developed nations. Climatic Change 106(2), 327-336.
Ford, J., et al (2010). Climate change policy responses for Canada’s Inuit population: The importance of and opportunities for adaptation. Global Environmental Change, 20, 177-191, 31.
For a full list: http://www.jamesford.ca/publications