OTTAWA – Public Safety Canada is planning to revive a program to map flood-prone areas in the wake of severe summer storms that left parts of Alberta and Ontario under water.
A tender on the government’s website states that overland flooding – flooding that enters a building through doors or windows as opposed to sewers or drains — is now the most costly hazard facing Canadian communities.
But information about which communities are vulnerable is decades out of date, said Blair Feltmate, chair of the Climate Change Adaptation Project at Western University. Existing floodplain maps were created under a federal program that ended in 1992, he said, and maps now in use are anywhere from 20 to 40 years old.
With climate change creating more severe weather and urbanization increasing the amount of paved, non-permeable surface area, Canada’s flood patterns have likely changed significantly in that time.
“We have to bring (the maps) up to date for obvious reasons,” Feltmate said Thursday, the day before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its fifth assessment report warning of increasingly volatile weather. Given this new reality, Insurance companies cannot accurately price property and casualty insurance premiums without updated information, Feltmate said, nor can municipalities determine which areas are safe or unsafe for development.
“We need the up-to-date floodplain maps to figure out first of all where not to build houses,” he said. “We simply do not know that now, and many cities will tell you that.”
Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney did not respond to requests for an interview, but the tender states the mapping assessment is part of a larger plan to help safeguard Canadian communities against the impacts of natural and manmade disasters.
Proposals are to include recommended mapping practices, assess the current state of Canada’s maps, and provide cost estimates for updating the documents.
While mapping is a good first step toward preparing Canada for more severe weather, Feltmate cautioned it must be done in tandem with other efforts, such as upgrades to aging infrastructure and better building standards. And mapping must not be a static process – resulting documents need to be constantly updated and the areas monitored, he said.
He added flooding has surpassed fire as the No. 1 driver of home insurance claims in Canada in the last 15 years, “not because we got better at handling fires but because damage due to flooding grew on a very steep upward curve.”
If something is not done to reduce the risk, some communities could soon be considered uninsurable. “The volume and the magnitude of claims being realized in certain areas are such that we may not be able to charge the premiums to cover the losses. People may not be able to afford them.”
Richard Kinchlea, former head of emergency management for the city of Hamilton and chair of the emergency management program at Centennial College in Toronto, questioned whether mapping should be the first priority in flood mitigation efforts.
Most cities are already aware of existing flood-prone areas, he said, and mapping won’t make much difference unless it comes with the funding for municipalities to safeguard those areas.
“It’s going to highlight our vulnerabilities,” he said. “When it does that, then comes the problem of assigning responsibilities. Because once you’ve seen it, you’ve really got to do something about it.”
