Blog

How do we protect New York City’s critical infrastructure systems from inundation? This question prompted New York City (NYC) authorities to consider flexible adaptation strategies, infrastructure investments and policy solutions to promote the benefits of ‘protect’ and ‘accommodate’ measures against future sea level rise (SLR), extreme precipitation, coastal flooding and storm surge events.

How should coastal communities in Nova Scotia cope with increased sea level rise and extreme flooding? This question motivated community members, property owners, Indigenous communities and governments to realign a section of Nova Scotia's North Onslow dyke in order to strengthen resilience to natural hazards and mitigate future flood risks.

As the climate changes, coastal communities can expect more flooding due to storm surge and sea level rise. Managing this risk requires adaptation--actions that reduce the exposure and vulnerability of people and property to climate-related hazards and increase resilience to cope with their impacts. The City of Surrey's Coastal Flood Adaptation Strategy, initiated in 2016, is an example of a robust, participatory planning initiative that identified short, medium and long-term options to adapt to climate change risk. We spoke with Matt Osler, Senior Project Engineer, about the Strategy.

While municipalities in Canada work on adapting to a changing climate and rising tides, it is important to take into consideration lessons learned from international jurisdictions, where many urban centres have already put in place projects and initiatives to address their coastal risks.

Earlier this month, Jason Thistlethwaite—Lead of the Canadian Coastal Resilience Forum—attended CatIQ’s Canadian Catastrophe Conference (C4) held in Gatineau, Quebec.

C4 gathers perspectives across the government, academia, for- and non-profit sectors to discuss strategies on how to prepare, respond and recover from natural and man-made disasters.