Canada Environmental Science Opportunity – Stream 1: Research, modelling & risk assessment​ │ Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)

Theme 1A: Research related to Canada’s changing climate

Funding: Up to $150,000 per year, per project for a maximum of four years.

Eligible applicants: Canadian post-secondary academic institutions and Canadian regional climate consortia.

Science Overview

Projects funded under this theme will address key knowledge gaps in climate science, where evidence remains limited or uncertain.

(1) Carbon cycle feedbacks over land and/or oceans:

Research will reduce uncertainty in the magnitude, sign, timing, and regional variability in carbon‑cycle feedbacks using improved modelling methods which may include Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) methods.

Priority

Funded projects will focus on one or more of the following priority science and knowledge areas:

• Advancing process understanding and modeling of carbon feedbacks over land and oceans, and how these feedbacks affect the global natural carbon budget or Canada’s net carbon balance
• Quantifying uncertainties in carbon cycle feedbacks to improve long-term projections

(2) Regional Climate Change, including extreme events:

Research will address low‑confidence aspects of regional climate signals and extremes. This includes event attribution, high‑impact or compound extremes, and high‑resolution regional climate modelling.

Priority

Funded projects will advance one or more of the following priority science and knowledge areas:

• Improving attribution and projection of high‑impact extreme events
• Advancing high-resolution regional modelling of extremes
• Large-scale atmospheric drivers of extremes including changes in low frequency variability modes (e.g. El Niño-Southern Oscillation – ENSO, Pacific Decadal Oscillation – PDO, North Atlantic Oscillation – NAO), storm tracks, the polar vortex, extratropical cyclones, atmospheric rivers, and North Atlantic hurricanes
• Improving historical characterization and understanding of poorly observed extremes, including sub-daily rainfall, freezing rain, hail, convective wind events

(3) Probabilistic scenarios of future change

Research will support the development of probabilistic, decision‑relevant scenarios that identify plausible futures and communicate uncertainty transparently.

Priority

Funded projects will advance one or more of the following priority science areas:

• Providing probabilistic projections for temperature, precipitation, and related risk indicators aligned with the needs of adaptation practitioners
• Developing methods to reconcile multi‑model ensembles, observational constraints, and storyline approaches to reduce divergence and quantify uncertainty in future regional change

(4) Extreme Coastal waves and water level projections

Research will provide new insights into coastal water level projections under different climate scenarios, including extreme events.

Priority

Funded projects will advance one or more of the following priority science and knowledge areas:

• Providing probabilistic projections of future changes in coastal water levels
• Applying coastal downscaling of ocean wave conditions to hundreds of meters, including information of the wave spectra, needed for coastal management and other applications
• Developing and applying wave setup and wave runup projections (a component of the extreme water level along a shoreline not currently available in projections at the Canadian scale)
• Advancing attribution studies based on coastal waves and/or sea level data (e.g., for coastal flooding).
• Determining sea ice effects on coastal waves and water levels, including improvements in sea ice parameterizations in wave models based on recent satellite data

Theme 1B: Quantifying the impact of cryosphere loss on freshwater

Funding: Up to $200,000 per year, per project for a maximum of five years.

Eligible applicants: Canadian post‑secondary academic institutions.

Science Overview

Funded projects will expand knowledge of processes and feedbacks, modernize monitoring systems, and apply advanced numerical modelling to understand cryosphere responses and implications for aquatic ecosystems and society. Science that advances understanding of cryospheric change will support water resource management and climate adaptation in Canada and contributes to the UN Decade for Action on Cryospheric Sciences (2025–2034).

Priority

Funded projects will advance one or more of the following priority science and knowledge areas:

• Improving observational and modelling systems to quantify and predict how thawing permafrost affects surface and groundwater quantity and quality, including releases of metals, carbon, nutrients, and contaminants
• Quantifying how warming, reduced snow, and declining glacier runoff affect freshwater storage and supply, with implications for agriculture, municipal water, hydro‑electricity, and groundwater recharge
• Studying links between cryosphere change, freshwater habitats, and aquatic ecology, including effects of changing snow and glacier meltwater on stream temperatures
• Projecting shorter lake and river ice seasons and assessing effects on shoreline erosion, water temperature, evaporation, water levels, water quality, aquatic ecosystems, ice roads, and weather (e.g., lake‑effect snow)
• Understanding regime shifts in freshwater quantity, quality, and aquatic ecosystems related to temperature, precipitation, and cryosphere change. This work will guide risk assessment and support the development of integrated hydro‑climatic monitoring and modelling initiatives

Theme 1C: Studying changing air quality conditions with climate change

Funding: Up to $100,000 per year, per project for a maximum of four years.

Eligible applicants: Canadian post-secondary academic institutions, Canadian non-governmental organizations, and Indigenous organizations, governments, boards, commissions, associations, and authorities.

Science Overview

Unlike other forms of pollution, every person living in Canada is exposed to air pollution, which presents the largest environmental risk to human health in Canada, contributing to an estimated 17,400 premature deaths and $146 billion per year in economic costs. Air quality and climate change interact, with some air pollutants also contributing to warming or cooling the climate, so researchers must consider these links. Higher temperatures, extreme weather, and other climate‑related changes are expected to worsen air quality.

Funded projects will examine the interdependency of air quality and climate change to quantify ecosystem and human‑health impacts. They will use these findings to inform emissions‑risk management strategies.

Priority

Funded projects will advance one or more of the following priority science and knowledge areas:

• Understanding how the changing mix of emissions impacts atmospheric chemistry, air quality, and pollutant deposition
• Quantifying wildfire emissions and studying how they affect air quality, using historical data from events where wildfires affected communities and ecosystems
• Understanding how urban emission profiles will change with climate change, and how those shifts will affect air quality, including how researchers will consider the transport of wildfire smoke into urban areas
• Examining how transportation emissions could evolve, and the implications for air quality
• Identifying the pollutants whose emissions are expected to increase significantly and thus should be tracked in the future

Theme 1D: Building confidence in the use of new approach methods in ecological risk assessment

Funding: Up to $250,000 per year, per project for a maximum of four years.

Eligible applicants: Canadian post‑secondary academic institutions.

Science Overview

Research is needed to develop, standardize and establish scientific relevance and confidence to demonstrate the suitability of new approach methods (NAMs) in keeping with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) weight of evidence guiding principles and key elements. This is to support fit-for-purpose uses of NAMs across regulatory contexts. The results of the funded research projects will enhance the department’s capacity to prevent and manage pollution and to implement the Strategy to replace, reduce or refine vertebrate animal testing under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA) – Canada.ca.

Priority

Funded projects will aim to build confidence in the use of NAMs in ecological risk assessment, and advance one or more of the following priority science and knowledge areas:

• Computational modelling
• Biochemical assays
• Cellular / in vitro assays
• Early-life stage (that is, prior to self-feeding) and non-vertebrate whole organism models
• Tissue and organoid models
• Data science / bioinformatics

Theme 1E: Advancing the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for operational hydro-meteorological and environmental services

Funding: Maximum of $200,000 per project for one, two or three years, with funding for multi-year projects allocated in equal amounts each year.

Eligible applicants: Canadian post-secondary academic institutions actively engaged in research related to the atmosphere, environment, water, air quality, information technology, or data science.

Science Overview

Projects will advance expertise in the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies for operational hydro-meteorological and environmental services in Canada.

• Innovations in AI technologies for weather and environmental prediction including modelling, post-processing, data management, and observation quality control have the potential to deliver broad societal benefits, such as improved, timely and user-specific information related to extreme and high-impact weather and environmental events, more efficient use of computing resources, and enhanced responsiveness to emerging and evolving service needs
• Projects are sought to advance knowledge and expertise in Canada to better understand how AI can be effectively applied in the context of operational hydro-meteorological and environmental services, while remaining aligned with principles of transparency, accountability, and responsible use of AI

Priority

Funded projects will advance one or more of the following:

• AI-based methods that improve quality of predictions for extreme and high-impact weather and environmental events
• Unified AI-based approaches and frameworks across atmospheric, oceanic, hydro, land and air quality domains, with an emphasis on improving modelling performance and computational efficiency
• AI-based decision-making and prioritization activities in weather and environmental services, using large data sets
• AI-based methods to assess, enhance, and maximize the value and reliability of observational networks
• AI-based intelligent water monitoring, prediction, and resource optimization