![]() ![]() She regularly collaborates with researchers and partners from organizations active in the forestry and energy sectors, including Université Laval, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, HEC-Montréal, Polytechnique Montréal, Kruger, the Quebec Ministry of Forests, Fauna and Parks, the Quebec Ministry on the Environment and the Fight Against Climate Change, and the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada. ![]() She is interested in environmental life cycle assessment methodologies and the development of advanced modeling tools for quantifying the impact of human activities on climate change. These projects are attracting a lot of interest in the scientific community because they will allow public authorities to acquire tools capable of developing and measuring the effect of measures deployed to reduce GHG emissions.Īnnie Levasseur has been a professor-researcher in the Department of Construction Engineering at the ÉTS since 2017. In order to develop optimal strategies, it is necessary to take into account forest carbon stocks, variations in forest cover albedo, the life cycle of forest products, the life cycle of substituted products, and all this with a prospective approach,” explains Professor Levasseur. “For example, the combination of different models is essential to assess the climate change mitigation potential of the forest sector. These tools will be obtained through the development and combination of different models that will make it possible to integrate phenomena that are often ignored, such as market effects that can lead to carbon leakage to other sectors or variations resulting from land use. She will integrate methane emissions into this data, which are very often ignored or roughly estimated even though they represent a significant portion of the pollutants emitted into the atmosphere.Īnnie Levasseur also wants to create advanced modeling tools to evaluate the strategies put in place to mitigate climate change at the provincial and national levels. To achieve this, she plans to improve the combination of data and models that will be used to compile the GHG inventory on a sector-by-sector basis. “A life cycle approach will be implemented to take into account GHGs produced outside the study area,” explains Professor Levasseur. Moreover, this mapping would avoid “shovelling” the GHG problem into the neighbour’s backyard, since it would be possible to integrate so-called indirect emissions, those related to the production of imported fuels and materials, into the new inventory. In addition, such a map would be an interesting visualization tool to show the general public the impact of its activities and, by the same token, to further engage citizens in the fight against climate change. This mapping of GHG emissions would make it possible to adapt GHG reduction action plans by focusing on the actions with the greatest impact in a specific context. “By combining the data sources typically used to calculate GHG emissions, i.e., emission factors, with geolocation data or data from origin-destination surveys, for example, we could find out at what time of day or season transportation-related GHGs are most significant in a given Montreal neighbourhood,” she says. This data does not allow the effect of other factors on emissions, such as the impact of weather conditions or the development of active transportation corridors on transportation patterns, to be studied. With several environmental projects and collaborations to Professor Levasseur’s credit, it is important to consider the spatial and temporal dimensions of GHG emissions to gain a better understanding of the problem and its solution!Ĭurrently, in ground transportation, for example, the amount of fuel sold during the year in a given territory is multiplied by the GHG emissions attributable to the combustion of one litre of fuel. Consequently, the resulting data is often published with delays, is poorly understood by the general public, and does not take into account the variation in GHGs that may be emitted over a given period of time in a specific geographic area.Īnnie Levasseur, a professor-researcher in the Department of Construction Engineering at the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS), plans to address this problem, thanks in part to the work she will be leading under the new Canada Research Chair in measuring the impact of human activities on climate change. However, the tools that currently allow us to calculate them are imperfect, imprecise, and require resources and time. Many states, including Quebec and Canada, have committed to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is well known: human activity is the main cause of climate change. ![]()
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