I have the following…

I have the following qualifications to comment on the environmental aspects of this amendment: 1) I have a PhD from the University of California, Davis in agricultural and resource economics with a specialization in environmental and resource economics 2) I am a fellow of the Global Land Programme 3) I am an internationally recognized scholar with many grants and highly-cited publications in land-use change, organic agriculture, land-use and carbon sequestration, and residential development and stormwater management and 2) I teach "Climate Change Planning," a graduate course supporting the Climate Change management degree at the University of Waterloo.

The plans to limit new Greenfield development in this amendment support sound planning principals for climate-change planning:

- The Region of Waterloo's employment is highly centralized around its downtown cores. This means that urban expansion will result in non-linear (quadratic) increases in vehicle miles traveled, and corresponding vehicle emissions, which now account for around 45% of the Region's carbon emissions. (note: the transportation catchment increases by the square of the radius).

- Irreversible farmland conversion will not only decrease the Region's food security, it will increase the carbon budget of it's food supply as food is shipped in from further distances.

- Loss of trees and wetlands, and gain of pervious surfaces due to development will increase flood risk to both the new developments and the downstream developed urban areas, as articulated in the linked Drescher and Khirfan and Drescher, Parker, and Rooney editorials.

- Loss of trees and wetlands will decrease biodiversity, decrease air quality, and increase urban heat island impacts, as articulated in the linked Drescher and Khirfan and Drescher, Parker, and Rooney editorials.

As I discuss in my recent editorial, there are many pathways to successfully intensify the Region, without converting new Greenfield lands. Already, developers are converting parking lots to housing. There is no rationale for the additional environmental costs of Greenfield conversion until and if all no-rise or low-rise, low-density areas within the Region are intensified.