Posted Dec 21, 2020, 12:25 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: BC
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On a somewhat related note: Wetlands, not walls, may be key to managing flooding as sea levels rise
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As sea levels rise, building higher walls may not be the best way to protect property, infrastructure and ecosystems in southwestern B.C., according to the leader of a four-year project aimed at coordinating local adaptation efforts.
Low-lying wetlands, salt marshes and natural assets are not just valuable habitat for wildlife, they might also be potent tools to manage flooding as sea levels rise by up to one metre over the next 80 years, said Kees Lokman, director of the UBC Coastal Adaptation Lab.
The traditional approach to flood management has led to the construction of nearly 300 dikes stretching more than 1,000 kilometres around B.C., much of that concentrated in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.
Many of those dikes were built to a design standard set in the 1960s and some are up to one metre too short, according a provincial government study.
Only about four per cent of local dikes are up to standard and the bill to fix them would top $10 billion. Canada’s federal disaster mitigation fund is currently just $2 billion.
But simply upgrading the dikes may not be the solution it appears to be.
“Dikes are very much geared to human safety and protecting assets, but we haven’t done much to protect our ecosystems,” said Lokman. “We are learning that wetlands are not only important as habitat, they can also buffer storm surges.”
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A four-year, $1-million project funded by the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions dubbed Living with Water will explore integrated flood responses applied on a regional scale.
“There’s a whole range of solutions that we could be exploring, but we currently don’t have the policy and regulatory tools to actually administer these projects,” he said.
Solutions to sea level rise have been left to local governments to figure out for themselves, which has led to huge variability in the approaches being applied.
Because coastal flooding occurs across multiple boundaries and jurisdictions, the project will seek to create an integrated response.
“Some of these things are going to be challenging or controversial and there’s not going to be one size that fits all,” said Lokman. “We are hoping to document strategies used elsewhere and find regulatory and policy solutions that municipalities and other levels of government can use moving forward.”
Living with Water aims to create decision-making tools and structures that will bring governments together in a shared approach to coastal flood adaptation, while integrating Indigenous knowledge and the perspective of the Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.
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