The final report from the study will be completed before March 2020
A study being done in Chatham Kent will be helpful for the Lake Erie shoreline of Essex County.
The municipality, the Lower Thames Conservation Authority and the federal government are funding the work.
The idea is to determine what type of damage climate change will have on the shoreline and what residents can do to limit that damage.
There's already been one public information gathering session and more are expected.
"There's been no research at all done on the impacts of climate change on future storm events, waves and storm surges that cause the hazards for the communities that are located around the perimeter of the lak," says Peter Zuzek, President of the the lead consulting firm for the project.
He says the study is along the Chatham-Kent shoreline, but is relevant all around the lake.
"This is something we've never had, this tool to look into the future and so we hope that other communities will look to what we've done and mode their planning and their efforts in the future to do similar things."
Zuzek says climate change warming will lead to greater shoreline damage, saying "The lake surface is warmer, the deep part of the lake is warmer, winter temperatures are warmer, we come into a scenario with very little to no ice cover. We now expose these shorelines to a dramatic increase in the amount of hazardous storm events."
The final report from the study will be completed before March 2020.