Road to Solutions — Climate & Energy
Advancing Maine’s Community Network for Energy and Climate Resilience
“While many communities and Tribal Nations want to reduce fossil fuel use, adopt sustainable energy practices, and respond to a changing climate in ways that are sustainable for the future, they often need support to reach those resilience goals and to find connection and synergies in solutions to often disparate seeming problems,” said Sharon Klein, an associate professor in the School of Economics and Mitchell Center faculty fellow.
That’s why for the past decade, Klein and her team at 91 have dedicated themselves to creating a statewide network called the (MAINECAN). MAINECAN’s 150-plus members include community groups, local governments, Wabanaki Nations, non-profit organizations, state agencies, businesses, and individuals. This two-year project will help to strengthen and grow this robust network.
Engaging With Low-Income and Disadvantaged Communities for State Climate Action Planning
Working with the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future (GOPIF), the project team is conducting broad-based engagement with low-income and disadvantaged communities to ensure that their concerns and priorities are included in the process of developing Maine’s next state climate action plan. The project is focused on three tasks: 1) Engaging with low-income and disadvantaged communities and priority populations to contribute to the climate planning process; 2) Supporting members of low-income and disadvantaged communities and priority populations serving as working group members; 3) Developing climate and equity training and guidance for the Maine Climate Council and its six working groups.
Shifting Seasonality: Consequences of the changing autumn season for Maine’s ecologically and recreationally valuable mountain ponds (WRRI 104b 2023)
Mountain ponds are sentinels of regional and global environmental change and are recreational hotspots that contribute to Maine’s tourism economy; however, the strength of climate change in mountain regions and its impact on the water quality and recreational value of these ponds remains unclear. Past climate trends indicate notable climate shifts in the region surrounding Maine’s mountains, occurring during times of year that are influential to lake ecology.
Environmental Impacts of Energy Transitions in Underserved Communities
Community-based sustainable energy initiatives have been growing across the United States as local governments add climate and energy committees and sustainability coordinators to their staff and operations. However, there are disparities between underserved communities and others. The proposed work seeks to understand how socioeconomic, cultural, behavioral, institutional, and systems factors drive individual, governmental, and community decisions regarding sustainable energy adoption in underserved communities.
Tracking the Effects of Forest Disturbances and Climate Change on Headwater Streams in Northern Maine (WRRI 104b 2021)
Many northern Maine areas with a history of large-scale forest harvest operations are now experiencing rapid changes in climate conditions. Researchers from the University of Maine System are partnering with diverse stakeholders to develop watershed management tools to support science-based decision-making based that accounts for multiple objectives.
Addressing Energy Justice Through Community Energy
Energy justice seeks to make sustainable energy solutions such as energy efficiency more accessible to traditionally underrepresented groups. Community energy involves a group of people coming together to solve an energy issue. This project addresses the solutions-side of energy justice with a pilot project on collectively building insulating window inserts, which can reduce heat loss, save energy and money, and protect the environment, in an Indigenous community.
Wabanaki Voices and Heritage Spaces: Advancing Indigenous Community Engagement in Shell Mound Research, Documentation, and Management in Maine
Archaeological shell mounds along Maine’s coast represent important Indigenous heritage spaces that preserve a record of past lifeways and environments. With support from a partnership development grant from the Mitchell Center, a team led by 91 faculty members Bonnie Newsom and Alice Kelley and graduate student Natalie Dana-Lolar are working with tribal representatives, the Abbe Museum, Schoodic Institute and Acadia National Park to increase Wabanaki stakeholder engagement in shell heap research, education and management.
Strengthening Engagement with the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians for Watershed Restoration and Environmental Justice
This project seeks to strengthen engagement between researchers and students at the University of Maine and staff of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians (HBMI) Natural Resources Department (NRD), both in the near and long term. Through supporting creation of a story map, the project aims to raise awareness about the NRD’s water quality, conservation, and climate change work throughout the Meduxnekeag and larger Wolastoq/St. John watersheds. A commitment to justice-oriented and decolonizing approaches to the production of knowledge, aligned with 91’s larger research values as they relate to work that intersects with Wabanaki Tribal Nations, is foundational to this work.
Using paleolimnology and eDNA to assess links between warmer winters and summer blue-green algae in Maine’s lakes (WRRI 104g)
Blooms of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, are a growing problem in freshwater bodies across the United States, where they produce toxins that can cause illness in humans and other animals as well as environmental harm.
The ecological factors that promote the development of these harmful algal blooms (known as cyanoHABs) are poorly understood, and considerable uncertainty remains about how climate interacts with other drivers in determining the prevalence of cyanoHABs.
Climate Adaptation Evaluation
In collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, project researchers are evaluating methods designed to strengthen processes for evaluating and enhancing the success of climate adaptation programs and projects.
Harnessing Spatiotemporal Data Science to Predict Responses of Biodiversity and Rural Communities under Climate Change
In response to a changing climate, populations of plants and animals move to more hospitable locations. Predicting where species will end up, and how New England farmers and rural communities need to plan for such changes, is the focus of a new interdisciplinary research initiative led by the University of Maine. The project’s goal is to better understand how plant and animal species — including forest plants, wildlife, diseases transmitted from animals to people, and agricultural crops — will respond to a changing climate in the next century.
Assessing the Value of Access to Water-Related Data to Support River Basin Management
The benefits of collaborative river basin planning efforts are increasingly recognized. Informed decision-making in these basins requires access to comprehensive data and information (“water data”) about key issues. However, the water data that are needed are often found in disparate sources, or are not publicly available, posing barriers to effective water management.
In 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) initiated a project to investigate and document the value of improving the discovery, sharing, and use of water data for diverse stakeholder groups. Coordinated dam management practices within and across these basins could lead to opportunities for greater power production and fewer environmental impacts than if dams are managed independently.
We’re All in This Together: Participatory Planning for Community-Based Climate Change Adaptation
Vacationland. Take one look at Maine’s license plate and you see the widespread importance of tourism to the state. Maine’s natural resources attract visitors from all over the world but are also vulnerable to climate change, which is likely to impact visitors as well as communities dependent on tourism. This project seeks to move beyond traditional power structures and collaborate with community partners to co-develop locally relevant, useful climate change solutions. The result of this collaboration will be a participatory framework to build climate-planning capacity within tourism-dependent communities.
Collaborating Toward Climate Solutions
The research and engagement of Collaborating Toward Climate Solutions (CTCS) is designed to support on-the-ground problem-solving for the complex challenges that communities face with climate change. The research team is working closely with community partners to co-develop strategies and extension/assistance services to foster adaptation and resilience. This includes learning about community priorities and challenges and identifying potential service-provider partners, best practices, and the potential for networks that enable towns to connect with peer communities.
Enhancing Equity Outcomes for the Maine Climate Council
Through this project, the Mitchell Center is assisting the Maine Climate Council to understand and improve the extent to which the draft strategies being considered as part of the council’s Climate Action Plan ensure that the benefits of climate protection efforts are distributed equitably. The team is also addressing inequities in how the burdens created by climate change and the policies designed to alleviate it may affect people and communities.
Using Socio-Economic Impacts to Inform Decision-Making on Dams (WRRI 2020)
With large-scale river restoration projects becoming more prevalent, new opportunities such as the Penobscot River Restoration Project (PRRP) have emerged to investigate key questions about socio-economic impacts. Comprehensive stakeholder engagement and collaboration between a variety of interests were critical to the success of the PRRP and other similar dam removals. The research team is working with key stakeholders to identify and evaluate impacts of river restoration, continuing to learn about the socio-economic impacts and benefits of dam removals and the importance of building community engagement and education around river restoration.
Archived Projects
Please contact umgmc@maine.edu to access the following archived projects.
(WRRI 2019)
(New England Sustainability Consortium)