68th Canadian Geotechnical Conference and 7th Canadian Permafrost Conference

AGRICULTURAL ADAPTATIONS TO CHANGING PERMAFROST CONDITIONS IN SOUTHERN YUKON

Session: Northern Communities / Communautés nordiques

Karen McKenna, CryoGeographic Consulting (Canada)
Kam Davies, Agriculture Branch, Energy Mines and Resources, Government of Yukon (Canada)
Scott Smith, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (Canada)
Pierre-Yves Gasser, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (Canada)

Yukon agriculture is adapting to the challenges caused by existing and changing permafrost conditions. An ongoing study identifies indicators of permafrost and changing permafrost conditions, documents adaptations farmers are making and uses baseline soil mapping, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Land Suitability Rating System (LSRS) and climate scenario outputs for modelling future land suitability for agriculture in permafrost-affected areas. The presence of discontinuous permafrost near surface and at depth causes problems for agriculture so understanding where permafrost occurs and its condition is important for agricultural decision making. As LSRS does not currently take permafrost into account when rating land suitability for agriculture, we discuss the use of existing permafrost observational data, available detailed soil mapping and expert knowledge to incorporate known and observed permafrost conditions into the modelling.