Urban flooding and ground‐related homes in Canada: an overview

Abstract

Urban flooding associated with extreme precipitation is a significant cause of disaster damages for municipalities, homeowners and insurers in Canada. Several approaches have been applied to reduce urban flood risk at the municipal and homeowner scales, including addressing inflow/infiltration in wastewater systems, accommodating extreme stormwater flows in subdivision design and protecting individual homes from flooding. Insurers have also engaged in managing urban flood risk through interactions with individual policyholders and initiatives aimed at better understanding urban flood risk and risk mitigation options. Requiring mitigation measures at the time of the construction of homes, improving insurance data, application of incentives for appropriate private side retrofits, and improved collaboration between insurers and municipalities for identification of urban flood risk areas provide additional opportunities for urban flood risk reduction. Further, senior levels of governments should support inflow/infiltration reduction and application of climate change information to improve the planning and design of municipal infrastructure.

Increase in flood risk resulting from climate change in a developed urban watershed – the role of storm temporal patterns

“…China also experienced a devastating flood season in 2016 (Zhou et al, 2018) with the rapid increase in urbanization. Even with better planned and mature urban cities, Europe and North America are not immune to flooding in urban areas (Ashley et al, 2005;Feyen et al, 2009;Smith et al, 2016;Sandink, 2015). Impacts of climate change are expected to increase the risk of flooding and further exacerbate the difficulty of flood management in developed environments.…”

“…However, research focusing on the impacts of climate change on precipitation temporal patterns remains limited. The majority of available research uses global circulation models (GCMs) and regional climate models (RCMs) combined with statistical downscaling techniques to project IDF curves to reflect future climate conditions (Mamo, 2015;Nguyen et al, 2010;Schreider et al, 2000;Raff et al, 2009;Sørup et al, 2016). For example Mamo (2015) used monthly mean wet weather scenario data projected by four GCMs for the period 2020-2055, along with historic data from 1985 to 2013, which were then used as weather generator input using LARS-WG, from which data were generated to develop revised IDF curves.…”

Flood risk management and shared responsibility: Exploring Canadian public attitudes and expectations

“…Although it is sometimes characterised as a “devolution” of government responsibilities (Meijerink & Dicke, ), sharing FRM responsibility is important, because it spreads the cost of risk reduction measures, ensures those who are protected by publicly funded flood controls pay their “fair share,” and creates an incentive for individuals and groups to take independent action to mitigate their flood risk and prepare for recovery after a flood (Thistlethwaite & Henstra, ). These actions typically involve implementing property‐level flood protection (PLFP) measures such as a installing a sump pump or grading soil away from the home, as well as purchasing insurance to defray flood‐related losses (Sandink, ; Wang, Davidson, Trainor, Nozick, & Kruse, ). However, existing research suggests that property‐owners are unlikely to adopt these protective behaviours unless they accept that they have a responsibility to contribute to flood mitigation and recovery (Doorn, ).…”

Linking trends in urban extreme rainfall to urban flooding in China

“…There is an increasing report of urban flooding events, which have caused significant damages and fatalities over the world (Burke and Sipe, 2014;Bisht et al, 2016;Sandink, 2016;Smith et al, 2016;Zope et al, 2016). These damages can be mitigated through better urban heavy rainfall forecasting and urban storm drainage system design (Smith et al, 2016).…”