Eastern Shore project harnesses community for climate science

In the fading December light at the causeway beach on Sober Island, N.S., Robin Metcalfe and a group of other citizen scientists set up a device pointing due east down the sand.

This beach profiler — made of wing nuts, curtain rods, and a pocket level tied on with elastic bands — is measuring the slope of the beach, to assess how it's changing over time.

It's part of a series of measurements that Metcalfe, who is captain of this crew, and other citizen scientists are using to document the changes happening on this stretch of coastline. Metcalfe also has an automated weather station and rain gauge at his house five minutes down the road, to monitor weather and precipitation.

"The social aspect is really important because it's getting people out on the beach in December," he says. "It takes a certain degree of commitment."

These measurements are part of a monitoring project that started in the summer, gathering weather data and monitoring four beaches in the Sheet Harbour area.

"The idea with our project is that the people will start to understand the coast," says Camilo Botero, associate researcher at Dalhousie.

Botero, who is from Colombia, started the project after realizing there was little citizen-science monitoring on beaches in Nova Scotia.

"If we really want to transfer the climate action, and we really want the people to start to be better prepared, and if we want to improve coastal governance, we need people to participate, [and] the best way is … if you go directly to the beach."

In its initial phase, the project was largely funded by the Anglican church. 

Rev. Marian Lucas-Jefferies, co-ordinator of the Diocesan Environmental Network, an environmental group for the Anglican diocese of Nova Scotia and P.E.I., says supporting the project was in line with the church's commitment to environmental values.

Lucas-Jefferies says the Network helped secure funding from the church for weather stations and other aspects of the project, and provided connections to Eastern Shore parishes. Building those connections — as well as connections with other people doing similar work in faraway places, like Argentina and the Solomon Islands — is an important part of the network's role.

"One of the things about citizen science… is people learn how to take action in times of climate change. It's empowering and it builds community among people, and those are some of our goals."

In its first six months, the project has involved creating coastal climate teams to measure beaches using the beach profiler and other observations, and recording weather data from people's homes on the Eastern Shore. 

Botero says the main takeaway from the project thus far has been how little information existed about one of Nova Scotia's wildest stretches of coastline.