Understanding Canadian Winegrowers’ Perceptions of Climate Change and Their Implications for Adaptation Behaviors

Abstract

Climate change (CC) is currently impacting and will continue to affect the international and the Canadian wine industry in the future. Understanding how Canadian winegrowers perceive CC and address its consequences through adaptation can help support the grape and wine industry in the context of CC. The thesis aimed to understand how winegrowers perceive CC and the ways CC adaptation is occurring throughout Canada. Two studies were conducted in the provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, Québec and Nova Scotia. The first study of this thesis characterizes winegrowers with respect to their environmental values, CC knowledge and beliefs, and their perception of the consequences of CC on their winegrowing operations. The second study describes the present state of CC adaptation in the Canadian wine industry, as well as the adaptation strategies currently used and considered for future implementation to cope with specific weather events associated with CC. This study also investigates the attributes that drive CC adaptation throughout the country. Together, the two studies provide an overview of CC perception and adaptation in the main winegrowing provinces of Canada for the first time in literature. The thesis also contributes to the scholarly literature on CC perception and adaptation by highlighting the drivers that influence winegrowers’ adoption – or lack thereof – of adaptation practices in their operations. It also offers practical information that can be used by stakeholders of the industry to communicate CC information and adopt new practices to address its effects.