P4A report release "Canadian Voices on Flood Risk 2020"

The University of Waterloo's applied research network, Partners for Action (P4A), released a new report "Canadian Voices on Flood Risk 2020: Findings from a national survey about how we should manage an increasingly costly and common peril". The report looks at Canadian’s perceptions and attitudes on flood risk awareness and management. 

IC3's Executive Director, Daniel Scott, and members, Jason Thistlethwaite, Daniel Henstra, are authors of this report.

Read the results of P4A’s 2020 national survey on Canadians’ opinions on flood risk. Support for property buyouts is mixed and Canadians remain dangerously unaware of their own flood risk. Read the report here.

Key Findings from the report:

• 97% of respondents believe that homeowners have some responsibility to protect their property from flooding.
• Only 6% of respondents know they live in a designated flood risk area.
• The majority (81%) of respondents have not reviewed flood maps for their community.
• Almost half of respondents (47%) are not concerned about flooding, while most do not have flood insurance (57%) and have not taken steps to protect their property, such as installing a sump pump (55%).
• Respondents believe the responsibility of communicating flood risks falls to multiple stakeholders, including all levels of government, insurance companies and real estate professionals.
• Opinions about property buyout programs are mixed, but signal that this is an important strategy for governments to consider: half agree that homes at risk of repeat flooding should be offered buyouts before flooding happens, but most believe buyouts should be voluntary rather than mandatory, and that the costs should be distributed across all three levels of government.