Flooding « Transition Brockville

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Tag : Flooding (47)

Minister’s statement on St. Lawrence flooding

Recorder & Times / Ronald Zajac / 12 March 2020

The statement from [federal Public Safety Minister Bill] Blair’s office, sent Thursday evening, tied the flooding to climate change, which “is making natural disasters more severe, more frequent, more damaging and more expensive.”

“We need to find innovative and sustainable ways to mitigate the impact of these natural disasters, and to strike a better balance of responsibility for the incurred costs,” it added.

The government is working with other levels of government, academia, indigenous partners, non-governmental organizations and industry leaders to boost flood resilience “and empower everyone to mitigate flood risk,” the statement continued.

“We are also working toward creating a new low-cost national flood insurance program to protect homeowners who are at high risk of flooding and lack adequate insurance protection. We’re also developing a national action plan to assist homeowners at high repeat flood risk, as well as completing flood maps for all of Canada.”

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Along the Great Lakes, it’s time to prepare for extremes

New York Times / Peter Annin / 13 February 2020

The relentless high water is bound to bring more strife this year even as officials along the Great Lakes continue to promote climate adaptation strategies and resiliency. Armoring the shoreline is one form of adaptation. Property buyouts are another. History will show which strategy is most effective over time. What’s clear is that some people have built too close to the water’s edge. Their property was fine during low water, and they managed to hang on during the record high water of the 1980s, but today’s weather patterns have brought panic.

The devastation has been remarkably widespread, with properties sliding into the lakes from one end of the expansive watershed to the other. In this new era of extremes, property owners, taxpayers — and the officials they elect — will need to take a serious look at their lakefronts and decide whether armoring up is a wise investment, or a Sisyphean venture.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Managing Climate Change and Variability Risks in the Great Lakes Region

GLISA / 2016

GLISA supports the region, as it charts its future, facing multiple and simultaneous changes and uncertainties. The Great Lakes region represents a unique socio-ecological system. Bound by the Lakes that shape both its culture and natural resources, Great Lakes communities have experienced dramatic changes in the past five decades, including deep economic downturn, population shifts, and negative environmental impacts. While climate change impacts are projected to exacerbate some of these challenges, leaders in the region are increasingly committed to a sustainable future by leveraging opportunities to mitigate climate impacts and adaptively respond to them.

As a boundary organization, GLISA produces and integrates information from a wide array of scientific fields, helps develop collaborations among stakeholders and organizations with similar goals, and provides climate information to support decision makers throughout the eight Great Lakes states and the province of Ontario.

[ FULL REPORT ]

No disaster aid for new homes in flood plains

The Energy Mix / Mitchell Beer / 07 February 2020

Canadians building or buying new homes in areas at high risk for flooding will no longer have access to federal disaster relief under a new insurance plan set to take effect in the next three years, The Energy Mix has learned.

The new high-risk insurance system, now under development by federal, provincial, and territorial governments, will “replace government assistance and ensure that those who are at high risk pay for their own risk,” said Craig Stewart, vice-president, federal affairs at the Insurance Bureau of Canada, in an interview on the sidelines of Nature Canada’s Nature-Based Climate Solutions Summit in Ottawa.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Background paper answers key questions on 2019 flooding

IJC - ILOSLRB / 23 January 2020

In an easy-to-read background paper on High Water in 2019, the International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board responds to the call for more accessible information.

The paper uses question and answer format to explain why it flooded in 2019, why Lake Ontario outflows were not higher in 2018 and 2019, how the Board’s actions affected water levels, and what actions are being taken to reduce the risk of flooding in 2020 and beyond.

[ FULL ARTICLE ] [ BACKGROUND PAPER ]

IJC urges ‘more reliable’ solutions to high water

Recorder & Times / Sabrina Bedford / 12 December 2109

The International Joint Commission (IJC) is urging shoreline residents to find alternative ways to protect themselves from rising water since it has little influence over water levels throughout the system.

The binational organization said in an online seminar this week that water levels in the Great Lakes have been so high in the last few years, virtually nothing it can do will outmaneuver what Mother Nature has in store.

Jane Corwin, chairwoman of the United States section of the IJC, said the organization is “very concerned” about current water levels and the possibility of flooding next year, but the water management body has limited control over what can be done.

[ FULL ARTICLE ] [ WATER LEVELS WEBINAR ]

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