Climate change in Canadian civil engineering curricula: gaps and best practices

Abstract

This study examines the state of curricula, knowledge, and practices in Canada’s civil engineering programs with respect to climate change, identifies best practices, and formulates recommendations on ways to improve climate change knowledge and skills training for Canadian civil engineering programs. A survey based on the Climate Framework was distributed to 856 civil engineering instructors across all 25 accredited engineering schools listed by Engineers Canada and gathered data on 55 civil engineering climate change related courses, with representation from 20 out of the 25 accredited programs across the country. The results of this study provide important benchmarks to help instructors incorporate most relevant climate change topics and resources into their courses for equipping civil engineering students with the necessary skills to tackle emerging challenges related to the mitigation of climate change and adaptation to wildfires, droughts, sea level rise, increased precipitation, storms, heat domes, floods, earthquakes, and biodiversity loss.