Climate change will lead to a number of direct and indirect impacts
on petroleum industries in Canada’s prairie. Therefore, a challenging
question faced by the industry is how they should adapt to the changing
climatic conditions in order to maintain or improve their economic and
environmental efficiencies. In this study, initial efforts have been
made to assess the interrelationships between climate change and petroleum
activities in Canada's prairies. Many petroleum-related processes that
are vulnerable to climate change are analyzed, the associated impacts
assessed. Perceptions of stakeholders to the climate-change impacts
and the related governmental policies were investigated through a number
of interactions with the related industrial and governmental personnel.
The adaptation strategies within petroleum sector and the related policy
adjustments within governmental organizations at different temporal
stages and spatial locations were studies, with a number of recommendations
provided.
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Petroleum operations range from exploration, production and refining
to transportation and storage. Climate change will lead to a number
of direct and indirect impacts on this industrial sector. Therefore,
a challenging question faced by the industry is how they should adapt
to the changing climatic conditions in order to maintain or improve
their economic and environmental efficiencies. In this research, initial
efforts are made to assess the interrelationships between climate change
and petroleum activities in Canada's prairies. A number of processes
within the prairies' petroleum industry that are vulnerable to climate
change are examined through extensive survey, investigation and analysis.
In addition to the organization of workshops, roundtable meetings and
panel discussions, many questions were designed and distributed in various
ways (mail, email, telephone call, interview, and internet) to collect
information of perceived climate-change impacts and adaptation strategies.
Many people from industries, research institutions, governments, and
non-governmental organizations were contacted for information and knowledge
acquisition. Multivariate statistical analyses (chi square test) were
conducted to examine potential correlations among various surveying
results. These analyses were helpful for identifying potential conflicts
of interest, biases and interactions. Thus, more reasonable interpretation
of the surveying outputs can be obtained. Based on the investigation
and surveying results, an expert system (named ISSCCI) was developed
for facilitating integrated climate-change impact assessment and adaptation-strategy
analysis within the prairie's petroleum industry. A vast amount of information
related to industrial processes, climate-change impacts, potential adaptation
alternatives, and system component interactions was integrated within
the ISSCCI framework. The developed ISSCCI can provide decision support
for the prairie's energy industries and the related governmental organizations
to conveniently examine issues of climate-change impacts and potential
adaptation options.
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