Flooding « Transition Brockville

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Tag : Flooding (41)

Lake Erie residents reckoning with worsening shoreline erosion

CBC News / Ellen Mauro / 06 December 2019

O’Brien lives on Erie Shore Drive, a stretch of road near Chatham-Kent in southwestern Ontario that was originally built as a dyke.

It’s prone to flooding, but O’Brien and her neighbours aren’t alone in their struggle. Many communities along Lake Erie have faced a challenging combination over the past year: record-high water levels and significant erosion of the shoreline.

This double whammy has caused property sizes to shrink as the lake swallows land, and has forced some homeowners to make the painful decision to either continue to try save and their lots or abandon them.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Mental health expertise meets sandbags in building resilience

The Energy Mix / 04 December 2019

It was judicious use of mental health expertise, along with many, many sandbags, that enabled Fargo, North Dakota to weather the challenges of the epic 2009 Red River flood.

That was one of the experiences that pointed to a basic precondition for building communities’ ability to face the climate emergency: Recognizing climate change as a profound threat to mental health, responding with messages of “hopeful realism” and ongoing compassion, particularly for older adults and children, and helping communities acquire the psychological and social resilience to cope.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Flood, fire and plague: climate change blamed for disasters

Reuters / Robert Birsel / 14 November 2019

While the politicians argue, concern is growing about the impact on the health of a warmer world.

In China, health officials have reported a rare outbreak of pneumonic plague after two cases were confirmed this week in Beijing.

The two were infected in the province of Inner Mongolia, where rodent populations have expanded dramatically after persistent droughts, worsened by climate change, state media said. An area the size of the Netherlands was hit by a “rat plague” last summer.

The wider implications for health are sobering.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

‘Depaving’ project carves green space out of Ottawa street

CBC News / Krystalle Ramlakhan / 06 October 2019

Yesterday morning, volunteers removed asphalt by hand “as much as possible,” said Jen Stelzer, manager of community sustainability programs with Ottawa non-profit EnviroCentre, which helped co-ordinate the project.

“A lot of the time, these big community projects can sort of just happen behind the scenes. But in this case, we actually have scored all of this asphalt … and we’ll be using pry bars to lift it out by hand. And the community will come together and really experience that many hands make light work,” Stelzer said.

“It really brings ownership back [to] the spaces in our environment.”

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Record-high Great Lakes water levels the ‘evolving normal’

The Energy Mix / Jeremiah Rodriguez / 20 August 2019

“The flooding this spring and summer along the northern shores of Lake Ontario, the Toronto Islands, and some Toronto-area beaches has been particularly troublesome for homeowners and businesses,” CTV states. “According to government statistics, July water levels for the bodies of water between Canada and the U.S. were at record highs. And this can lead to faster erosion of the coastline and flooding.”

Feltmate, head of UW’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, cited climate change as one of two factors “disproportionately” affecting Great Lakes water levels. “Number one is climate change-induced. We’re getting more water coming down over shorter periods of time more frequently,” he told CTV. The other factor is that “we’ve removed 72 to 73% of the natural infrastructure of forest fields and wetlands, which gives water a place to go when it falls.” So “now, when the big storms hit, the water goes very quickly into the Great Lakes.”

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Premiers push Ottawa for lead on local climate change strategy

NWT News/North / Nick Pearce / 14 July 2019

“Climate change is a global threat, with immediate and long-lasting, tangible impacts on the natural environment, public health and safety, as well as on infrastructure and the economy,” they stated. The comments were released on the second day of the Council of the Federation, a meeting of premiers in Saskatoon.

“Some of the changes are so significant we see it as an important job for us to educate people in the south that their actions are having a big effect on us,” [NWT Premier Bob] McLeod said told reporters Thursday.

The premiers also said their jurisdictions required “Full credit” for reduction of emissions, and federal funding to support climate change strategies as wildfires and floods become more common.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

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