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Sarah Stewart-Clark is excited to lead an interdisciplinary team that was recently awarded $484 000 to examine the impact of storm events and sea-level rise on marine invertebrates in the intertidal zone.

Marine invertebrates are economically vital to economic stability and food security to coastal communities locally and globally.  Her team is comprised of social scientist, Ian Stewart (Kings), civil engineer Barrett Kurylyk (DAL), invertebrate immunologist Fraser Clark (DAL), crustacean ecologist Iain McGaw (MUN) and marine ecologist Ramon Filguera (DAL).

"The interdisciplinary approach allows us to combine expertise to look at storm impacts on our coastline from a physical engineering perspective, fishery and aquaculture perspectives, ecological and biological perspectives, and how changes to our coasts will impact the community of people who live and work in these ecosystems.," explained Dr. Stewart-Clark. "Our work is focused on case studies along the North Shores of PEI and Nova Scotia and will train a total of five PhD and three MSc candidates over the next five years.

TranSECT (Transformative adaptations to Social-Ecological Climate change Trajectories) is a part of the Transforming Climate Action CFREF that Dalhousie received along with partners MUN and UQaR.   

"Being part of the larger transdisciplinary TranSECT team of provides a perspective wider than our individual research teams and has changed the way I view climate impacts on coastal ecosystems and communities," she added.  "As the transformative name suggests this research will directly benefit coastal communities in PEI and NS and increase their resilience through extreme storm events caused by climate change."