Climate change and the preparedness of 16 major Canadian cities to limit flood risk

This paper evaluates the flood preparedness of fourteen cities spread across the ten Canadian provinces. In Canada, flood management is the responsibility of the provinces and territories, however, this responsibility is often legislatively delegated to municipal goverments. Therefore, flood management activities including mapping, planning, preparation, response and recovery are typically executed at the local rather than at the provincial, territorial, or federal level. As such – and as a complement to the report Climate Change and the Preparedness of Canadian Provinces and Territories to Limit Flood Risks, that addressed the preparedness of provincial and territorial governments to address flood risk – this report instead focuses on how the municipal governments of 16 major Canadian cities self- assess their efforts to reduce the severity of flood impacts on their jurisdictions and citizens.

The broad findings of this study indicated that to limit the adverse effects of ongoing flood damage, Canadian cities need to make significant improvements in three areas of flood preparedness:

• Risk mitigation for residential property,
• Critical infrastructure risk mitigation, and
• Public health and safety.