This is Cat Tales, the e-newsletter of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, for March/April 2015. Included in this issue: Under development: The growing use of planning tools, including development permits, to address wildfire risk to communities; New Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes formed; Book excerpt: Flood Forecast; and, ICLR’s Paul Kovacs opens Premiers’ climate change summit.
Australian Bushfire
and Climate Plan
Final report of the National Bushfire and Climate Summit 2020
The severity and scale of Australian bushfires
is escalating
Australia’s Black Summer fires over 2019 and 2020
were unprecedented in scale and levels of destruction.
Fuelled by climate change, the hottest and driest year
ever recorded resulted in fires that burned through land
two-and-a-half times the size of Tasmania (more than 17
million hectares), killed more than a billion animals, and
affected nearly 80 percent of Australians. This included
the tragic loss of over 450 lives from the fires and
smoke, more than 3,000 homes were destroyed, and
thousands of other buildings.
While unprecedented, this tragedy was not
unforeseen, nor unexpected. For decades climate
scientists have warned of an increase in climaterelated disasters, including longer and more
dangerous bushfire seasons, which have become
directly observable over the last 20 years. Extremely
hot, dry conditions, underpinned by years of reduced
rainfall and a severe drought, set the scene for the
Black Summer crisis.
Recommendations - The 3 Rs - Response,
Readiness and Recovery
There is no doubt that bushfires in Australia have
become more frequent, ferocious and unpredictable
with major losses in 2001/02 in NSW, 2003 in the
ACT, 2013 in Tasmania and NSW, 2018 in Queensland,
2009 Black Saturday Fires in Victoria and 2019/20 in
Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia. We are
now in a new era of supercharged bushfire risk, forcing
a fundamental rethink of how we prevent, prepare for,
respond to, and recover from bushfires.
This Australian Bushfire and Climate Plan report
provides a broad plan and practical ideas for
governments, fire and land management agencies
and communities to help us mitigate and adapt to
worsening fire conditions. The 165 recommendations
include many measures that can be implemented right
now, to ensure communities are better protected.
Panel IV: “Translating National Strategies to Practice”
Gerry Galloway, Research Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Maryland, Maryland, USA
THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION TO COMBAT DESERTIFICATION ITS IMPLICATIONS AND BENEFITS TO UGANDA.
RIO Multi-lateral Environment Agreements and National Frameworks in Uganda
ON 8TH NOVEMBER 2019
By Stephen Muwaya UNCCD National Focal Point
Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries
Australian Bushfire
and Climate Plan
Final report of the National Bushfire and Climate Summit 2020
The severity and scale of Australian bushfires
is escalating
Australia’s Black Summer fires over 2019 and 2020
were unprecedented in scale and levels of destruction.
Fuelled by climate change, the hottest and driest year
ever recorded resulted in fires that burned through land
two-and-a-half times the size of Tasmania (more than 17
million hectares), killed more than a billion animals, and
affected nearly 80 percent of Australians. This included
the tragic loss of over 450 lives from the fires and
smoke, more than 3,000 homes were destroyed, and
thousands of other buildings.
While unprecedented, this tragedy was not
unforeseen, nor unexpected. For decades climate
scientists have warned of an increase in climaterelated disasters, including longer and more
dangerous bushfire seasons, which have become
directly observable over the last 20 years. Extremely
hot, dry conditions, underpinned by years of reduced
rainfall and a severe drought, set the scene for the
Black Summer crisis.
Recommendations - The 3 Rs - Response,
Readiness and Recovery
There is no doubt that bushfires in Australia have
become more frequent, ferocious and unpredictable
with major losses in 2001/02 in NSW, 2003 in the
ACT, 2013 in Tasmania and NSW, 2018 in Queensland,
2009 Black Saturday Fires in Victoria and 2019/20 in
Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia. We are
now in a new era of supercharged bushfire risk, forcing
a fundamental rethink of how we prevent, prepare for,
respond to, and recover from bushfires.
This Australian Bushfire and Climate Plan report
provides a broad plan and practical ideas for
governments, fire and land management agencies
and communities to help us mitigate and adapt to
worsening fire conditions. The 165 recommendations
include many measures that can be implemented right
now, to ensure communities are better protected.
Panel IV: “Translating National Strategies to Practice”
Gerry Galloway, Research Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Maryland, Maryland, USA
THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION TO COMBAT DESERTIFICATION ITS IMPLICATIONS AND BENEFITS TO UGANDA.
RIO Multi-lateral Environment Agreements and National Frameworks in Uganda
ON 8TH NOVEMBER 2019
By Stephen Muwaya UNCCD National Focal Point
Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries
Background of Environmental Laws: International ContextPreeti Sikder
Learning Objectives: After completing this lesson, students will be able to:
a) trace the development of laws in the environmental arena
b) identify the needs and goals which led to today's environmental legal regime
c) critically assess the current requirements the latest legal documents must bear in order to meet the generational needs
RC&D analytical report on human rights and climate chagerac_marion
Climate change is a threat to people's rights, especially those who are already among the most vulnerable in society. Moreover, various projects and investments, including some presented as solutions agaients climate change, generate social, health and food problems for the population. The analytical report presents the links between human rhights and climate change as well as the recommmendations of the French-speaking african civil society network Réseau Climat & Développement.
This is a presentation on one of the topic of environmental law. It deals with Rio Declaration which is a very important summit in the history of environmental law.
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit , Rio Summit, Rio Conference, and Earth Summit (Portuguese: ECO92), was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992.
This lecture covered Module 1 of course CVE1-405 Planning for Sustainable Development of Second year B. Tech Civil Engineering affiliated to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Lonere, Raigad, Maharashtra- India.
Road to Rio+20, UN Conference on Sustainable Development 2012ISCIENCES, L.L.C.
Road to Rio+20 is a summary of preparations for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) called “Rio+20” to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil June 20-22, 2012.
Background of Environmental Laws: International ContextPreeti Sikder
Learning Objectives: After completing this lesson, students will be able to:
a) trace the development of laws in the environmental arena
b) identify the needs and goals which led to today's environmental legal regime
c) critically assess the current requirements the latest legal documents must bear in order to meet the generational needs
RC&D analytical report on human rights and climate chagerac_marion
Climate change is a threat to people's rights, especially those who are already among the most vulnerable in society. Moreover, various projects and investments, including some presented as solutions agaients climate change, generate social, health and food problems for the population. The analytical report presents the links between human rhights and climate change as well as the recommmendations of the French-speaking african civil society network Réseau Climat & Développement.
This is a presentation on one of the topic of environmental law. It deals with Rio Declaration which is a very important summit in the history of environmental law.
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit , Rio Summit, Rio Conference, and Earth Summit (Portuguese: ECO92), was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992.
This lecture covered Module 1 of course CVE1-405 Planning for Sustainable Development of Second year B. Tech Civil Engineering affiliated to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Lonere, Raigad, Maharashtra- India.
Road to Rio+20, UN Conference on Sustainable Development 2012ISCIENCES, L.L.C.
Road to Rio+20 is a summary of preparations for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) called “Rio+20” to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil June 20-22, 2012.
Anti-Doping Agencies Around The World Support ASADA Chiefisteroidscom
Messages of support have been pouring in for Ben McDevitt, chief of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA), after the precedent set by the not-guilty verdict for the Essendon doping scandal where all 34 former and current players of the club were held not guilty.
Grand Challenges for Disaster ReductionFrancisYee1
The Grand Challenges for Disaster Reduction outlines a ten-year
strategy crafted by the National Science and Technology Council’s
Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction (SDR). It sets forth six Grand
Challenges that, when addressed, will enhance community
resilience to disasters and thus create a more disaster-resilient
Nation. These Grand Challenges require sustained Federal
investment as well as collaborations with state and local
governments, professional societies and trade associations, the
private sector, academia, and the international community to
successfully transfer disaster reduction science and technology
into common use.
To meet these Challenges, the SDR has identified priority science and technology
interagency implementation actions by hazard that build upon ongoing efforts.
Addressing these implementation actions will improve America’s capacity to prevent and
recover from disasters, thus fulfilling our Nation’s commitment to reducing the impacts
of all hazards and enhancing the safety and economic well-being of every individual
and community. This is the wildland fire-specific implementation plan. See also sdr.gov
for other hazard-specific implementation plans.
This is Cat Tales, the e-newsletter of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, for July/August 2015. Included in this issue: New ICLR publication: Risk reduction status of homes reconstructed following wildfire disasters in Canada; An update on urban flood-related projects at ICLR; Wanted: New products to lighten the financial burden placed on taxpayers from disasters; and, Preliminary losses for 1H 2015 $37 billion, number of victims rise: Swiss Re.
This paper contains a status report on completed actions as the Institute enters the third year of its five year strategic plan, and sets out actions to guide the Institute’s research and outreach efforts for the coming year.
This presentation looks at Eco Terrorism
Eco Terrorism is growing in terms of risk. All level of government need to look at the issues including water management, land management, forest management and building codes
More radical environmentalists are trying to hijack the government agenda when it comes to environment.
Many forest fires have been link to people setting them as part creating disruption within government
CO2 is the cop put, why? It is easy to blame CO2 on natural disaster vs the real issue which is urban planning.
All level of governments are failing to do proper risk management plans in terms of mitigating impact of disasters.
National plan climate changes resilience for smalls islandsFlorin777
Small islands are unique and largely self-contained ecosystems. Their existence owes much to their existing environmental endowment. Preparation and understanding what sustains islands, and how they will be affected by future climate changes is an important concern.
Two thirds of the countries with the highest disaster losses relative to GDP are small island states – with average annual losses between 1 and 9 percent of GDP. Losses of this magnitude are an enormous burden on a country’s budget and fiscal position, with serious consequences for growth and development prospects.
They therefore represent particularly fertile sites to look at the interplay of resilience, vulnerability and adaptation.
Humboldt County Firewise Mapping Project - Final reportJerry Dinzes
Prepared by Humboldt State students, this report discusses the benefits of Firewise mapping and community fire management programs. Prepared By: Jerry Dinzes, Eileen Nunez, Chibu Okezie, Hether Ward
Trillions of dollars in properties and developments along the coastal U.S. are being threatened by a warming planet, according to a groundbreaking government study released in 2018. The threat is not limited to coastal properties. And the threat is not limited to coastal properties. This article covers flood risk management trends, government regulations and insurance, and offers links to many online resources.
This is Cat Tales, the e-newsletter of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, for January/February 2015. Included in this issue:
• ICLR releases new book: ‘Cities adapt to extreme rainfall: Celebrating local leadership’
• Intensity-Duration-Frequency under Climate Change Tool rollout
• U.S. establishes new federal flood risk management standard to account for climate risks
• New ICLR publication: Best practices guide: Management of inflow and infiltration (I&I) in new urban developments
This is Cat Tales, the e-newsletter of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, for January/February 2015. Included in this issue: ICLR releases new book: ‘Cities adapt to extreme rainfall: Celebrating local leadership’; Intensity-Duration-Frequency under Climate Change Tool rollout; U.S. establishes new federal flood risk management standard to account for climate risks; and, New ICLR publication: Best practices guide: Management of inflow and infiltration (I&I) in new urban developments.
ICLR Friday Forum: Earthquake Early Warning (April 22, 2022)glennmcgillivray
On April 22, 2022, ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar title 'Earthquake Early Warning", led by Henry Seywerd, Program Manager for the Earthquake Early Warning at Natural Resources Canada.
Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) provides the ability to give warnings seconds to tens of seconds prior to the arrival of strong shaking from a major earthquake allowing the initiation of protective actions. EEW is available in many earthquake-prone countries around the world including Japan, Turkey, Mexico, and the United States. Natural Resources Canada is developing a national earthquake early warning system for Canada to cover the west coast of BC, the corridor from Ottawa to Quebec City, and other areas in Canada. The system will involve the installation of 400-600 new sensor stations, fast communication links, and new data centres for the creation of alert messages. The Canadian EEW system will be closely integrated with that operated by the US Geological Survey and use the same software packages; this will ensure consistent cross border alerts, which is particularly important in SW British Columbia. Alert messages will be distributed to the Canadian public via the National Public Alerting System. In addition, customized alerts will be available for the use of critical infrastructure operators and others to allow them to implement automated protective actions for facilities and equipment. The system is currently under development and expected to be producing alerts in 2024.
Henry Seywerd, Program Manager for the Earthquake Early Warning at Natural Resources Canada, is heading a project to establish a national system for providing rapid warnings to mitigate the effects major earthquakes. He has been involved in emergency management at NRCan for over ten years including managing the refurbishment of the Canada’s seismic monitoring network, and leading its nuclear emergency response team. Prior to joining NRCan Henry has held diverse positions in industry and research including the development of equipment for medical imaging and performing fundamental research in high energy physics.
ICLR Friday Forum: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (March 11, 2022)glennmcgillivray
On March 11, 2022, ICLR conducted a Friday Forum Webinar titled 'What are some key findings relevant to the Canadian context from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report – Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adoption and Vulnerability?" led by Linda Mortsch.
IPCC Assessment Reports are considered the gold standard for information on climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. In February 2022, the second of four reports in the sixth assessment cycle - Working Group II’s Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability - was released. It represents the culmination of an exacting process where experts review and assess climate change information in order to provide a synthesis for decision-making that is policy-relevant but not policy prescriptive. This presentation addresses three topics. It begins by describing the unique IPCC assessment process. Next, it highlights key, overarching findings from the report’s Summary for Policy Makers (SPM), which has received governments’ approval. Lastly, it focuses on the North America Chapter providing details relevant to the Canadian context on a wide range of topics such as water resources, forest fires, cities, and economic sectors.
Linda Mortsch has devoted much of her career to addressing climate change issues and facilitating adaptation planning and decision-making in water resources, coastal zones, wetland ecosystems and urban areas. She has expertise collaborating with stakeholders to assess impacts, vulnerability, and resilience, and initiate adaptation. Her 1992 research project “Adapting to climate variability and change in the Great Lakes Basin” was one of the first to engage stakeholders and explore adaptation to climate change in Canada. Since 1989, Linda has played a role in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. For the sixth assessment cycle, she was the Convening Lead Author for the North America chapter. Now retired from Environment and Climate Change Canada, Linda has an adjunct appointment in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo. She continues to undertake studies that support adaptation capacity building and help meet the challenges of moving from adaptation planning to implementation and from incremental to transformative changes. Linda received the 2009 University of Waterloo, Faculty of Environment, Alumni Achievement Award in recognition of professional achievement and distinguished environmental and community leadership.
ICLR Friday Forum: Functional Recovery for Lifeline Infrastructure Systems (F...glennmcgillivray
On February 25, 2022 ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar titled 'Functional Recovery for Lifeline Infrastructure Systems', led by Craig A. Davis, Ph.D., P.E., G.E. of C A Davis Engineering.
Engineers design buildings and lifelines mostly to protect life safety, with few provisions to safeguard post-disaster functionality and recovery. Codes evolve, so older infrastructure tends to be less safe than new. As a result, natural disasters can damage utilities and transportation infrastructure (commonly called lifelines), kill and injure users, displace residents, close businesses, and cause other economic and socio-cultural harm. We cannot completely eliminate these risks, but we can improve community resilience by designing and retrofitting our lifelines with codes, standards, and policies that focus on post-disaster recovery. Engineers speak of these developing requirements and policies as “functional recovery,” meaning that we hope to design or modify lifelines to better ensure fast restoration of at least there basic functionality, even before all repairs are completed. Functional recovery requires acknowledging and accounting for the way lifelines interact—water service can rely on electricity and vice versa—so a functional recovery framework must ensure common degrees of reliability between interacting lifelines. In the United States, an effort is underway to develop recovery-based goals and functional-recovery design and retrofit guidelines and standards. The US Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology are leading the development of recovery-based objectives for earthquake design, with consideration for future applications to other natural hazards.
Dr. Davis is a professional consultant on geotechnical, earthquake, and lifeline infrastructure system resilience engineering. He currently leads the development of functional recovery and operability concepts for lifeline infrastructure systems. Before opening a consulting firm, he led efforts to improve disaster resilience at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. He has written over 180 technical publications and has investigated numerous earthquakes.
ICLR Friday Forum: Risk as analysis and risk as emotion (Jan 21, 2022)glennmcgillivray
On Friday, January 21, 2022 ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar titled 'Risk as analysis and risk as emotion', with Dr. Lucy Jones, founder and Chief Scientist of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society.
Long before engineers existed, human beings evolved the concept of risk and appropriate responses to it. Psychologists have shown that we have parallel processing systems for risk, the analytical and the affective. The analytical is logical and slow, bringing reason and scientific deliberation to hazard management. The affective is our fast, instinctive and intuitive reactions to danger. Our survival has often depended on the affective system and thus we are wired to only act when our emotions are involved. Because unseen risks are more frightening, we take more precautions against nuclear accidents and earthquakes than other risks that are far more likely to kill us, such as car accidents. This talk will explore the various emotions that govern our response to risk and how this information can be used to encourage mitigation.
Dr. Lucy Jones is the founder and Chief Scientist of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society, with a mission to foster the understanding and application of scientific information in the creation of more resilient communities, and a Research Associate at the Seismological Laboratory of Caltech. With a Bachelor of Arts in Chinese Language and Literature from Brown University and a Ph.D. in Geophysics from MIT, Dr. Jones has been active in earthquake research for decades, furthering earthquake risk reduction, including 33 years of federal service with the US Geological Survey. Her work at the USGS included developing the methodology for estimating the probability that an earthquake will be a foreshock to a bigger event, leading the creation of a national science strategy for natural hazards research, creating the first American major earthquake drill, the Great ShakeOut, that has expanded to now encompass over 60 million participants around the world in 2019 and writing over 100 published papers on statistical seismology and integrated disaster scenarios.
ICLR Friday Forum: Development, Responsibility + Creation of Flood Risk in Ca...glennmcgillivray
On December 10, 2021, ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar titled 'Development, Responsibility, and the Creation of Flood Risk in Calgary, Alberta', led by Dr. Tim Haney, Mount Royal University.
Why do developers continue to build homes near rivers? Should municipal governments allow it? Should real estate agents be required to disclose a home's location in a floodplain? These are some of the questions we will explore in this talk. Based on interviews with Calgarians affected by the 2013 Southern Alberta Flood, Dr. Tim Haney's research looks at how they view the construction of new housing near Calgary's rivers, how they attribute responsibility for these new forms of risk, how they view developers and municipal government, and what they believe should be done to protect residents from flooding. The talk was based upon Dr. Haney's new article "Development, Responsibility, and the Creation of Urban Hazard Risk," and uses theory from urban political economy to understand and frame the ongoing creation of risk in Calgary.
Timothy J. Haney is Professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University in Calgary, and holds the inaugural Board of Governors Research Chair in Resilience & Sustainability. From 2014 to 2919 he served as the founding Director of the Centre for Community Disaster Research at MRU. He's a sociologist of disaster, environment, cities, and science, and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. His research covers topics such as risk perception, social inequalities in disaster recovery, climate change beliefs, post-disaster environmental views, and urban politics. His research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Urban Affairs, Environmental Sociology, Disasters, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, and The Sociological Quarterly. Dr. Haney lived in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and takes classes of MRU students to New Orleans to learn about disaster recovery while serving the community.
ICLR Friday Forum: Quantifying Risks for Canadian Homeowners Using Quake Cat ...glennmcgillivray
On November 19, 2021, the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction held a webinar title 'Quantifying Financial Risks for Canadian Homeowners Using Earthquake Catastrophe Models", led by Katsuichiro Goda, PhD, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Multi-hazard Risk Assessment, Faulty of Science, Western University.
Earthquake insurance plays a pivotal role in the recovery from earthquake disasters and protects people from financial risks that damaging earthquakes pose. Currently there are significant earthquake insurance gaps between West (British Columbia) and East (Quebec). This presentation will discuss the quantification of financial insurance risks for Canadian homeowners. Possible causes of the earthquake insurance gap problems, such as risk perception and affordability, are investigated using the state-of-the-art earthquake catastrophe models and consumer survey results.
Dr Katsuichiro Goda is an Associate Professor and a Canada Research Chair in Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. His research is focused on catastrophic earthquake-related multi-hazard risk management from economic and societal viewpoints. He has received international recognition on his high-quality research through various awards and grants, including a prestigious 2012 Charles F. Richter Early Career Award given by the Seismological Society of America and a Humboldt Research Fellowship Award for experienced researchers by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He received the 2017 IASSAR Early Achievement Research Award given by the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability.
ICLR Friday Forum: How Media Reports on Disaster Events (October 15, 2021)glennmcgillivray
On October 15, 2021, ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar titled 'Disaster Coverage: How Media Reports on Disaster Events', led by Kevin Quigley, PhD, Scholarly Director, Professor, School of Public Administration, Dalhousie University.
Media narratives play an important role in how we understand disaster events and how we hold public officials to account for their response. While media coverage of high impact-low probability events seems dramatic, in fact, it’s quite nuanced. Different types of events generate different types of coverage. Pandemics generate high volume and alarming media coverage. So, too, do terrorist attacks and industrial failures. In contrast, terrorist plots and natural disasters generate medium- to high-volume coverage that is mildly negative and at times positive towards officials. Media cover cybersecurity very little. This presentation will review the patterns and reflect on their consequences.
Kevin Quigley is a public administration scholar who specializes in risk governance and critical infrastructure, focusing in particular on public sector responses to rare and high impact events, such as pandemics, natural disasters, industrial failures and cyber and terrorist attacks. Dr. Quigley has published two critically acclaimed books on critical infrastructure, including his most recent, 'Too Critical to Fail: How Canada Manages Threats to Critical Infrastructure' (co-authored with Bisset and Mills) which was shortlisted for the 2018 Donner Prize, awarded for the best public policy book by a Canadian.
On September 24, 2021, ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar titled 'An evidence-based approach for Coastal Flood Risk Assessments', led by Nicky Hastings, Project Lead for the National Scale Geohazard Risk project within the Public Safety Geoscience Program at Natural Resources Canada
Canada has the longest coastline globally, approximately 243,000 kilometres of diverse geographies and geomorphologies, including fiords, arctic tundra, river delta's, bluffs and sandy or rocky beaches. The impacts of coastal flooding, tsunamis and related hazards vary across these landscapes. Approximately 6,570,000 people live in communities along Canada's coast. Many of them depend on the ocean to make their living in fisheries, shipping or other related industries. Our work applies science and technology (S&T) to advance operational capabilities, assess and model coastal hazards and risks at various scales across Canada. These assessments can better inform decisions that will reduce current and future risks and help communities adapt to a changing climate to become more resilient to these hazards. This presentation provides insights into a three-year collaborative project that brings together researchers and practitioners to work, share, demonstrate, provide guidance and integrate coastal flood models across Canada. These models are used to inform risk reduction decisions build resilience, support return on investment evaluations and buy-in for disaster risk reduction.
Nicky Hastings is the Project Lead for the National Scale Geohazard Risk project within the Public Safety Geoscience Program at Natural Resources Canada. Over the last 14 years, she has worked with a team to develop and adapt risk assessment methods to assess Canada's earthquake and flood risks. Nicky works closely with internal and external partners to better understand how scientific knowledge can inform decision making. Several initiatives are underway in the risk project, including a new five-year project under the Emergency Management Strategy that operationalizes evidence based methods to evaluate and prioritize earthquake risk reduction measures and other natural hazards.
ICLR Friday Forum: Part 1 - Canada’s National Guide for WUI Fires (August 20,...glennmcgillivray
On Friday, August 20, 2021, ICLR hosted a two-part webinar titled "The National Guide for Wildland Urban Interface Fires (Part 1), and an Impact Analysis of the National WUI Guide (Part 2).' Part one was led by Dr. Noureddine Bénichou, a Principal Research Officer at the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada.
Part 1: Canada’s National Guide for Wildland-Urban Interface Fires
A National Guide for Wildland-Urban Interface Fires, the first of its kind for Canada, was recently published by the National Research Council of Canada as part of the Climate-Resilient Buildings and Core Public Infrastructure (CRBCPI) initiative. The Guide is intended to mitigate the growing risk of damage and loss due to WUI fires by improving the resilience of buildings and communities to wildfire. Drawing on recent wildfire research, existing codes, standards and guidelines, and new insights from international experts, the Guide provides comprehensive support for the WUI areas of Canada, including information on hazard and exposure assessment, vegetation management and construction measures, and community planning, resources and outreach.
ICLR Friday Forum: Part 2 - National WUI Guide Impact Analysis (August 20, 2021)glennmcgillivray
On Friday, August 20, 2021, ICLR hosted a two-part webinar titled "The National Guide for Wildland Urban Interface Fires (Part 1), and an Impact Analysis of the National WUI Guide (Part 2).' Part two was led by Dr. Keith Porter, co-principal of SPA Risk LLC, an applied-research firm specializing in multihazard disaster risk to buildings and lifelines.
Part 2: National WUI Guide Impact Analysis
With NRC support, ICLR collaborated with SPA Risk LLC and several stakeholders to examine the impacts of following NRC’s WUI Fire Guide. Following the Guide for new construction can produce benefits that exceed the approximately $5/square-foot costs by 32:1, and more when one can rely on vegetation management. Retrofitting existing buildings, with somewhat higher costs, can save up to 14:1 in high-hazard locations. Application of the WUI Guide across Canada would add $125 billion to construction and retrofit costs over 10 years but avoid $500 billion in future losses, create 20,000 jobs, save 2,300 lives, avoid 17,000 nonfatal injuries, and protect $1 billion in tax revenues. The impact analysis suggests that the guide makes good financial sense for Canada.
ICLR special webinar: Observations from the 07/15/2021 Barrie Tornado (July 2...glennmcgillivray
On July 28, 2021 ICLR conducted a special webinar titled 'Observations from the July 15, 2021 Barrie Tornado' led by Greg Kopp of Western University Engineering, ImpactWX Chair in Severe Storms Engineering, and Project Leader of the Northern Tornadoes Project.
In this session, Dr. Greg Kopp reviewed findings he and his team documented while conducting an investigation of the aftermath of the July 15 tornado in Barrie, Ontario. The EF2-rated storm damaged approximately 150 homes, with 71 deemed by the City as “too dangerous to enter.” Dr. Kopp and his team arrived in Barrie within hours of the storm.
Dr. Greg Kopp is the ImpactWX Chair in Severe Storms Engineering and a professor in Western University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He received a B.Sc.M.E. from the University of Manitoba in 1989, a M.Eng. from McMaster University in 1991 and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 1995. His expertise and research relate to mitigating damage to structures during extreme wind storms such as tornadoes and hurricanes. He works actively to implement research findings into practice, currently serving as Chair of the ASCE 49 Standards Committee on Wind Tunnel Testing For Buildings and other Structures, and as a member of various other Building Code committees. A former Canada Research Chair in Wind Engineering, he is also the lead researcher for the Three Little Pigs Project at The Insurance Research Lab for Better Homes.
On July 16, 2021 ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar titled 'Edmonton's approach to stormwater flood management', led by Susan Ancel, Director of One Water Planning for EPCOR Water Services in Edmonton, Alberta. EPCOR has developed a $1.6 billion Stormwater Integrated Resource Plan (SIRP) to mitigate the impacts of flooding in the community. SIRP envisions all stakeholders – citizens, businesses, industry, the City of Edmonton and EPCOR working together to build a flood-resilient future. The goal is to Slow, Move, Secure, Predict and Respond to flooding events to prevent or reduce the impact. EPCOR’s planned flood mitigations projects will take 20 years to complete. The types of projects that are included in SIRP include dry ponds, low impact development, tunnels, combined sewer separation, outfall control gates, inflow/infiltration reduction, building flood proofing, increased sensors and automatic controls and emergency response equipment. The plan was developed through consultation with Climate Change Adaptation, Insurance and Financial sector groups across North America.
Susan Ancel is the Director of One Water Planning for EPCOR Water Services in Edmonton, Alberta. In her prior role, she was Director of Stormwater Strategies, where she was responsible for developing an Integrated Resource Plan for flood mitigation that considered capital and operational risk mitigation planning, as well as the interrelationships between utilities, insurance, disaster response agencies and the public. Prior to her Stormwater Strategies role she was the Director of Water Distribution and Transmission for EPCOR. Susan is a Mechanical engineer with over 30 years’ experience with the municipal utility sector. She has also served on numerous industry committees including the Board of Directors for the Geospatial Information Technology Association (GITA) from 2001 to 2007 and was President of GITA in 2006. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Canadian Water Network.
ICLR Friday Forum: Floodplain mapping over Canada: performance at inundation...glennmcgillivray
ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar on June 18, 2021 titled 'Floodplain mapping over Canada: Investigating performance at inundation level and understanding dynamics of population flood exposure', led by Dr. Slobodan Simonovic, Director of Engineering Studies, ICLR/Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Western University.
Surface runoff estimates from atmospheric re-analysis datasets are increasingly preferred by hydrologists for modelling floods in regions where traditional observations are not sufficiently available. This presentation explores the fidelity of four widely used re-analyses runoff products as hydraulic forcings to a flood inundation model in describing inundation dynamics over Canada. The re-analysis obtained runoff is used with the Catchment-based Macroscale Floodplain (CaMa-Flood) global hydrodynamic model, to derive high-resolution floodplain maps for 100 and 200-yr return periods. The floodplain maps derived from each reanalysis dataset are compared with the regional developed or ‘benchmark floodplain maps’ over six selected flood-prone basins (test basins) in Canada through a set of performance statistics. Using the superior reanalysis runoff dataset, a few historic flood events over the test basins are simulated and subsequently compared with MODIS satellite-derived floodplain information. We notice that more than 75% of the inundation is precisely captured for these events.
The second part of the presentation will focus on the use of four global population datasets (together with census data from Statistics Canada as the reference), their performances and skill in flood exposure assessment across Canada. The flood exposure is quantified based on a set of floodplain maps for Canada derived from the CaMa-Flood global flood model. To obtain further insights at the regional level, the methodology is implemented over six flood-prone River Basins in Canada. We find that about 9% (3.31 million) and 11% (3.90 million) of the Canadian population resides within 1 in 100-yr and 1 in 200-yr floodplains.
This work (i) strongly supports the need for careful selection of a re-analysis dataset while performing inundation modelling for large regions: and (ii) also highlights the need for careful selection of population datasets for preventing further amplification of uncertainties in flood risk. The results derived from this study may be useful for flood risk management and contribute to understanding other disaster impacts on human-environment interrelationships.
On May 21, 2021, ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar titled 'Climate Disclosure, Litigation and Finance'"Climate Disclosure, Litigation and Finance' is a forthcoming chapter in 'Canada in a Changing Climate: National Issues'. In this webinar, chapter authors Paul Kovacs, Gordon McBean, Gordon Beal, Maryam Golnaraghi, Pat Koval and Bohan Li examined the evolving climate risks for businesses and governments.
Climate change is now widely regarded as an environmental and an economic issue. While the policy discussion about climate change emphasizes the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to better cope with the impact of extreme events, the business community is increasingly focused on the physical and transition risks and opportunities presented by climate change. The research team will discuss how managing the risks and opportunities associated with climate change affect a company’s ability to access capital, deliver products and services, hire and retain employees and achieve positive financial performance.
Paul Kovacs is the Executive Director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction.
Professor Emeritus Gordon McBean is with the ICLR and Department of Geography and Environment, Western University and the past President of the International Council for Science and former ADM of the atmospheric component of Environment Canada.
Gordon Beal, CPA, CA, M.Ed., is the Vice President of Research Guidance and Support for Chartered Professional Accountants Canada and a member of Canada’s National Climate Change Adaptation Platform Plenary.
Dr. Maryam Golnaraghi is the Director of Climate Change and Environment at The Geneva Association, a platform of Group CEOs of largest insurance companies, a non-resident senior fellow at The Atlantic Council and serves on a number of boards and advisory councils in the US, Canada and the UK.
Patricia Koval, JD, is a Board Director of a number of companies in the United States and Canada, a former partner of a major Canadian law firm, and a member of the Ontario Advisory Panel on Climate Change.
Dr. Bohan Li is a research associate at the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction.
ICLR wildfire season forecast 2021 (May 20, 2021)glennmcgillivray
This is a forecast of the 2021 wildfire season led by Richard Carr from the Canadian Forest Service. The webinar summarizes the current conditions in Canada and provided a forecast for the 2021 wildfire season.
ICLR Friday Forum: Driving resilience forward with research (April 16, 2021)glennmcgillivray
On April 16, 2021, ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar titled 'Narrow the Path of Damage: Driving resilience forward with research', led by Anne Cope, PhD, Chief Engineer at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety.
Severe weather disrupts lives, displaces families and drives financial loss. Anne Cope, PhD, Chief Engineer at IBHS, discussed the Institute’s latest research investigating wind, wind-driven rain, hail, and wildfire. From how wildfires burn to how hail damages a roof, top-tier science delivers actionable insights for the insurance industry and homeowners. Anne will demonstrate how IBHS is working to motivate resilience through research to drive down losses and support thriving communities.
Anne D. Cope, PhD, P.E., Chief Engineer: Dr. Anne Cope joined IBHS in 2009 just a few months before the groundbreaking for the construction of the IBHS Research Center in Richburg, South Carolina. As the Chief Engineer, she leads the development of research programs to improve the performance of structures in hurricanes, wildfires, severe thunderstorms, and hailstorms as well as the team of engineers, scientists, and skilled craftsman who conduct research on full-scale homes and commercial buildings. She is responsible for the team’s implementation of research findings into building codes and standards.
Prior to joining IBHS, Dr. Cope was a project manager and structural engineer with Reynolds, Smith & Hills, Inc., designing projects for NASA, Department of Defense, and commercial launch operations. Dr. Cope’s research encompasses topics ranging from the full-scale simulation of wind effects on buildings to detailed studies of the vulnerabilities of buildings to natural hazards and the development of damage prediction models. She is also a proud veteran of the United States Army. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from Clemson University, and her doctorate from the University of Florida. She is a registered professional engineer in Florida and South Carolina.
On Friday, March 19, 2021, ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar titled 'Solutions for Tantramar marshes flooding', led by Dr. Jeff 0llerhead, Professor, Geography and Environment Department, Mount Allison University.
Most former salt marshes in the Tantramar region of Atlantic Canada are now protected by dykes and are used primarily for agriculture. This has been true for decades to centuries and, as such, their elevation can be as much as 2 m below that of undyked salt marshes in the region. The key environmental drivers shaping the marshes are changing over time with climate change. The rate of relative sea level (RSL) rise is accelerating and there is some evidence that storms are becoming more frequent and sea ice is diminishing. The risk of a catastrophic dyke failure and associated flooding increases each year. Risk from inland flooding is also increasing.
Possible solutions include a combination of: (i) raise and reenforce the dyke system, (ii) realign existing dykes and restore salt marshes to provide natural protection, and (iii) remove existing dykes and allow the system to return to a natural state. The highest priority for managing our salt marshes should be to provide them with sufficient accommodation space into which they can transgress naturally.
Jeff 0llerhead is a member of the Geography and Environment Department at Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB. He is a coastal geomorphologist who studies beaches and salt marshes. In recent years, he has been particularly involved in designing and monitoring salt marsh restorations in the upper Bay of Fundy.
ICLR Friday Forum: Canmore: Working toward a FireSmart community (Feb 26, 2021)glennmcgillivray
On February 26, 2021, ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar title 'Town of Canmore: Working Towards a FireSmart Community, led by Kerri Martens, Deputy Chief of Canmore Fire Rescue and Stew Wilkenshaw, owner/operator of Montane Forest Management.
The Town of Canmore is located in southwestern Alberta between Calgary and Banff. The Bow Valley had a rich wildfire history and has evolved from centuries of wildfire. Wildfire exclusion for the past 80+ years and development in the Town of Canmore has resulted in a wildland/urban interface fire threat that requires attention.
Stew Walkinshaw and Keri Martens discussed the wildland/urban interface threat within and surrounding the Bow Valley and the steps that have been taken over the past 20+ years to reduce the threat.
Keri Martens
Keri Martens, MA, is the Deputy Fire Chief of Canmore Fire Rescue. She has been involved in the fire service for over 20 years, originally starting her career as a paid responder and then taking on the position of Fire Chief for the Lake Louise Fire Department in Alberta. Keri took on the role of Deputy Chief with Canmore Fire Rescue in 2018 where her responsibilities include overseeing the Town’s FireSmart program including the implementation of the Home Assessment program along with yearly FireSmart Forums for community residents.
Chief Martens sits on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs and chairs the CAFC’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. She holds a Masters degree in Disaster and Emergency Management and is a member of Canada Task Force 2. Keri is married with 2 children and enjoys all the recreational perks of living in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
Stew Walkinshaw
Stew Wilkenshaw is owner/operator of Montane Forest Management, based out of Canmore, and provides FireSmart specialist services to the Town of Canmore. He has specialized in FireSmart community planning and wildland/urban interface fire operations in western Canada since 1993.
ICLR Friday Forum: What's that sound?: Residents' reaction during a tsunami e...glennmcgillivray
On January 15, 2021, ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar titled 'What's that sound?: How Residents Responded During a Tsunami Evacuation on Vancouver Island and How Similar Evacuations Might be Improved", led by Ryan P. Reynolds, MGIS, PhD, Post Doctoral Research Fellow, School of Community and Regional Planning, University of B.C.
It’s 3am on an early Tuesday morning, and you wake to the sound of a warning siren. You realize it’s your community’s tsunami warning system, and listen as it broadcasts instructions to evacuate the tsunami inundation zone and seek shelter on higher ground. You aren’t sure if you live in the inundation zone or not. What do you do? Dr. Reynolds conducted parallel door-to-door and online surveys to better understand how Port Alberni residents responded to this exact scenario on an early January morning in 2018. He wanted to learn how and when residents learned about the tsunami warning, what actions they took to respond, and where evacuees sought safety. We also wanted to explore residents’ views on how the evacuation was conducted by emergency officials and how the event may have changed their perceptions of tsunami risk in the community. In this webinar, findings were discussed from over 450 public surveys and interviews with 11 community and regional emergency officials in the Alberni Valley and highlight some best practices to improve future evacuations.
ICLR Friday Forum: Safety + serviceability of mass timber buildings for wind ...glennmcgillivray
On December 11, 2020 ICLR conducted a Friday Forum webinar titled 'Ensuring safety and serviceability of tall mass timber buildings for wind', led by Dr. Girma Bitsuamlak of Western University.
The past two decades have seen the continuing global recognition of tall-wood buildings as a sustainable alternative to address urban densification and sprawl issues. Recent design strategies are using wood as the primary construction material for tall buildings. Alan Davenport’s wind-load-chain indicates that the wind response of structures is governed by their aerodynamic features (shape), wind speed and direction (micro-climate), and dynamic properties (weight, stiffness, and damping). The use of wood panels to construct the lateral and gravity systems of the tall-wood building makes them lightweight and less stiff than buildings made from conventional construction materials. Frequent exposure to wind-induced oscillations can cause discomfort to occupants and deflection related serviceability problems.
A coordinated wind research program was launched in January 2016 between FPInnovations, The University of British Columbia, and Western University. The research program includes aerodynamic and aeroelastic investigations of dozens of tall-wood building case studies in the boundary layer wind tunnel laboratory. It also includes a tornadic wind load study at the WindEEE dome. This talk summarized the main findings of the research program. For all case studies, safety and serviceability criteria were satisfied. However, for heights exceeding ninety meters, either aerodynamic optimization, or supplemental damping, or “wind bracing” through different hybridization techniques is required to satisfy the serviceability criteria of the 2015 National Building Code of Canada.
Girma T. Bitsuamlak, PhD, PEng, F CSCE
Professor and Canada Research Chair in Wind Engineering at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Research Director at Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Lab. (BLWTL) and WindEEE Research Institute, Site leader at SHARCNET, Western University.
Instructions for Submissions thorugh G- Classroom.pptxJheel Barad
This presentation provides a briefing on how to upload submissions and documents in Google Classroom. It was prepared as part of an orientation for new Sainik School in-service teacher trainees. As a training officer, my goal is to ensure that you are comfortable and proficient with this essential tool for managing assignments and fostering student engagement.
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
Acetabularia Information For Class 9 .docxvaibhavrinwa19
Acetabularia acetabulum is a single-celled green alga that in its vegetative state is morphologically differentiated into a basal rhizoid and an axially elongated stalk, which bears whorls of branching hairs. The single diploid nucleus resides in the rhizoid.
Synthetic Fiber Construction in lab .pptxPavel ( NSTU)
Synthetic fiber production is a fascinating and complex field that blends chemistry, engineering, and environmental science. By understanding these aspects, students can gain a comprehensive view of synthetic fiber production, its impact on society and the environment, and the potential for future innovations. Synthetic fibers play a crucial role in modern society, impacting various aspects of daily life, industry, and the environment. ynthetic fibers are integral to modern life, offering a range of benefits from cost-effectiveness and versatility to innovative applications and performance characteristics. While they pose environmental challenges, ongoing research and development aim to create more sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives. Understanding the importance of synthetic fibers helps in appreciating their role in the economy, industry, and daily life, while also emphasizing the need for sustainable practices and innovation.
Operation “Blue Star” is the only event in the history of Independent India where the state went into war with its own people. Even after about 40 years it is not clear if it was culmination of states anger over people of the region, a political game of power or start of dictatorial chapter in the democratic setup.
The people of Punjab felt alienated from main stream due to denial of their just demands during a long democratic struggle since independence. As it happen all over the word, it led to militant struggle with great loss of lives of military, police and civilian personnel. Killing of Indira Gandhi and massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other India cities was also associated with this movement.
Palestine last event orientationfvgnh .pptxRaedMohamed3
An EFL lesson about the current events in Palestine. It is intended to be for intermediate students who wish to increase their listening skills through a short lesson in power point.
2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...Sandy Millin
http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/iateflwebinar2024
Published classroom materials form the basis of syllabuses, drive teacher professional development, and have a potentially huge influence on learners, teachers and education systems. All teachers also create their own materials, whether a few sentences on a blackboard, a highly-structured fully-realised online course, or anything in between. Despite this, the knowledge and skills needed to create effective language learning materials are rarely part of teacher training, and are mostly learnt by trial and error.
Knowledge and skills frameworks, generally called competency frameworks, for ELT teachers, trainers and managers have existed for a few years now. However, until I created one for my MA dissertation, there wasn’t one drawing together what we need to know and do to be able to effectively produce language learning materials.
This webinar will introduce you to my framework, highlighting the key competencies I identified from my research. It will also show how anybody involved in language teaching (any language, not just English!), teacher training, managing schools or developing language learning materials can benefit from using the framework.
Biological screening of herbal drugs: Introduction and Need for
Phyto-Pharmacological Screening, New Strategies for evaluating
Natural Products, In vitro evaluation techniques for Antioxidants, Antimicrobial and Anticancer drugs. In vivo evaluation techniques
for Anti-inflammatory, Antiulcer, Anticancer, Wound healing, Antidiabetic, Hepatoprotective, Cardio protective, Diuretics and
Antifertility, Toxicity studies as per OECD guidelines
Macroeconomics- Movie Location
This will be used as part of your Personal Professional Portfolio once graded.
Objective:
Prepare a presentation or a paper using research, basic comparative analysis, data organization and application of economic information. You will make an informed assessment of an economic climate outside of the United States to accomplish an entertainment industry objective.
June 3, 2024 Anti-Semitism Letter Sent to MIT President Kornbluth and MIT Cor...Levi Shapiro
Letter from the Congress of the United States regarding Anti-Semitism sent June 3rd to MIT President Sally Kornbluth, MIT Corp Chair, Mark Gorenberg
Dear Dr. Kornbluth and Mr. Gorenberg,
The US House of Representatives is deeply concerned by ongoing and pervasive acts of antisemitic
harassment and intimidation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Failing to act decisively to ensure a safe learning environment for all students would be a grave dereliction of your responsibilities as President of MIT and Chair of the MIT Corporation.
This Congress will not stand idly by and allow an environment hostile to Jewish students to persist. The House believes that your institution is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and the inability or
unwillingness to rectify this violation through action requires accountability.
Postsecondary education is a unique opportunity for students to learn and have their ideas and beliefs challenged. However, universities receiving hundreds of millions of federal funds annually have denied
students that opportunity and have been hijacked to become venues for the promotion of terrorism, antisemitic harassment and intimidation, unlawful encampments, and in some cases, assaults and riots.
The House of Representatives will not countenance the use of federal funds to indoctrinate students into hateful, antisemitic, anti-American supporters of terrorism. Investigations into campus antisemitism by the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Committee on Ways and Means have been expanded into a Congress-wide probe across all relevant jurisdictions to address this national crisis. The undersigned Committees will conduct oversight into the use of federal funds at MIT and its learning environment under authorities granted to each Committee.
• The Committee on Education and the Workforce has been investigating your institution since December 7, 2023. The Committee has broad jurisdiction over postsecondary education, including its compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, campus safety concerns over disruptions to the learning environment, and the awarding of federal student aid under the Higher Education Act.
• The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating the sources of funding and other support flowing to groups espousing pro-Hamas propaganda and engaged in antisemitic harassment and intimidation of students. The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is the principal oversight committee of the US House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X.
• The Committee on Ways and Means has been investigating several universities since November 15, 2023, when the Committee held a hearing entitled From Ivory Towers to Dark Corners: Investigating the Nexus Between Antisemitism, Tax-Exempt Universities, and Terror Financing. The Committee followed the hearing with letters to those institutions on January 10, 202
June 3, 2024 Anti-Semitism Letter Sent to MIT President Kornbluth and MIT Cor...
Cat Tales March/April 2015
1. Under development
Several Canadian communities have started
incorporating land use planning tools, such as
development permits, into their wildland fire
management strategies
By Paul Kovacs, Executive Director and
Glenn McGillivray, Managing Director
Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
e-newsletter of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
Volume 9, Issue 2
March/April 2015
ICLR Board of Directors
Kathy Bardswick (Chair)
The Co-operators
Barbara Bellissimo
State Farm
Charmaine Dean
Western
Louis Gagnon
Intact
Andy Hrymak
Western
Paul Kovacs
ICLR
Kenn Lalonde
TD Insurance
Sharon Ludlow
Aviva Canada
Brian Timney
Western
Johnathan Turner
Swiss Re
Land use planning is a tool that
many local governments around the
world use to reduce the risk of flood
damage. Now, several Canadian
communities have begun to
incorporate planning tools, such as
development permits, into
comprehensive community wildland
fire management strategies.
Development permits are
planning tools that local govern-
ments can use to manage develop-
ment, protect the environment and
address local health and safety
issues. These permits can be used
to combine management of zoning,
site planning and minor variants into
a single process.
As of late, more than a
dozen communities in British
Columbia and Alberta have started
using development permits to
control the extent, nature and
location of new
residential
development in the
wildland-urban
interface - or WUI -
essentially those
places where
housing and
vegetation abut or
comingle.
It appears
the growing use of
local government
planning tools to
address wildfire exposure in
western Canada is poised to spread
across the country. Indeed, this
past June, a revised Provincial
Policy Statement now requires that
local governments in Ontario use
their planning powers to address
both flood and, now, wildland fire.
Fire on the landscape
Fire is an essential agent for
ecological renewal and health in
forests and grasslands. However,
fire also has the potential to destroy
homes, disrupt communities and
threaten health and safety.
Loss and damage from fire in the
WUI has been growing and is
expected to increase significantly
over the coming decades unless ►
Inside this issue:
Under development 2/3
New global alliance
formed
3
Flood Forecast 4/6
ICLR’s Kovacs opens
Premiers’ climate
change summit
6
2. 2
current practices change. In
particular, the rising number of
people who live in the WUI,
coupled with the impact of
climate change on expected area
burned, are two factors that will
drive fire losses in Canada higher
absent action being taken.
For almost one hundred
years, fire specialists have
managed the risk of loss and
damage from wildfire in Canada
with little involvement from
individual property owners and
communities located in or near
wildlands.
Historically, most fires
were identified soon after they
began, and were suppressed
quickly. For many decades, there
were few wildfire fatalities and
relatively little damage to
property.
Since the 1990s,
however, there has been a trend
of rising costs of
fighting wildland fire
and fire damage.
These costs have
been growing in
Canada and have
increased at an
unsustainable rate in
some other countries,
including the United
States and Australia.
The most
damaging wildfires in
Canadian history, in
terms of the value of
property destroyed,
were relatively recent
events in 2003
(Kelowna, British
Columbia and nearby
communities) and
2011 (Slave Lake,
Alberta).
There is
widespread
agreement that the
current approach to
fire management in
Canada needs to
evolve.
Emerging fire
management best practices are
complex and seek to involve
many stakeholders, including all
levels of government, land
managers, fire management and
suppression agencies, home-
owners and insurers.
Fire specialists continue
to address fires when they ignite.
There are also efforts to reduce
the risk of large, uncontrolled fire
through prescribed burning,
thinning of forests and creation of
fire breaks.
Beyond the forests,
efforts are under way to involve
property owners in managing the
risk of fire damage. National
programs such as FireSmart
seek to educate property owners
and community leaders about the
role of fire in the ecosystem and
actions Canadians can take to
reduce the risk that fire enters a
community.
New wildfire
management tools are frequently
identified and tested in this
changing environment. Of
interest here, however, is the
emerging role of local
government planning officials.
Over many decades,
planners have provided important
tools to address other hazards,
most commonly the risk of loss
from riverine flood. However,
some progressive communities
have recently begun using
established tools, like
development permits, to address
the risk of damage from wildfire.
In June 2014, for
example, the Province of Ontario
included wildland fire in its
planning statement for the first
time. Prior to this change, only
British Columbia included wildfire
in its provincial
planning policy
statement.
Permits as wildland
firefighting tools
Several local
governments now
include covenants in
the development permit
system requiring fire-
resilient building
materials for new
homes.
Conditions for
approving a
development permit
may include fire-
retardant roofing,
exterior walls sheathed
with fire-resistive
materials, windows with
tempered or double-
glazed glass, decks
built with fire-resistant
materials, screens on
all eaves, attics and
roof vents and chimney
spark arrestors. ►
Under development cont...
3. 3Under development cont...
Provincial and territorial
governments do not currently
include provisions addressing the
risk of damage from wildland fires
in their respective building codes;
fortunately, these public safety
measures are now emerging in
local government development
permit requirements. The
development permit system can
also address landscaping and
site considerations to reduce the
risk that wildland fire will enter
and spread through a community.
This may include a
requirement for defensible space
of at least 10 metres around each
home free of combustible
materials, thinned plantings and
reduced combustibles in a zone
extending at least 30 metres
around each home, underground
servicing for hydro,
considerations to address the
additional risk to structures on a
slope, fire breaks and other
community safety measures.
The overall objective is to
ensure that new residential
developments are designed with
measures to defend against the
risk of wildland fire blowing or
burning into the community.
Most significantly,
development permits provide
local governments with the
authority to control and even
prohibit residential development
in zones of high fire risk. There
has been rapid growth in the
number of people who live in or
near wildlands across Canada,
including more permanent
residences and seasonal homes.
Evidence from the United
States, Australia and emerging in
Canada shows that growth in the
number of people living in areas
at risk is a critical factor that has
been increasing loss and damage
in the WUI. Development permits
give local governments the
authority and responsibility to
control residential development in
interface zones with high risk of
fire.
Looking forward
Land use planning is a tool that
local governments around the
world use to reduce the risk of
damage from riverine flooding.
This is true in Canada as well, as
many jurisdictions across the
country have endeavoured to
keep developers from
constructing homes in floodplains
and on floodways (some, as has
recently been witnessed, with
better success than others).
Now, it is emerging that
several communities have
similarly begun to use planning
tools, such as development
permits, to forge comprehensive
community wildland fire
management strategies.
The growing population
living in the WUI and projections
of increasing areas burned by
wildfire due to climate change
suggests these tools are likely to
spread in the years ahead and,
eventually, will be used by a
number of local governments
across the country.
Local planning decisions
can provide an important
contribution within a
comprehensive community
wildland-urban interface fire
management strategy.
Establishing
development permits looks to be
an emerging policy instrument for
local governments to address the
risk of loss from wildland fire and
will play a significant role in
ensuring that communities
located in the WUI are safe
places to live, work and play. CT
ICLR has announced that it will
immediately form a new
worldwide alliance with an
international group of disaster
research institutes.
The proposal builds on
initiatives presented at the
Sendai Framework for Disaster
Risk Reduction 2015-2030. The
3rd U.N. World Conference on
Disaster Risk Reduction was held
in Sendai, Japan from March 14
to 18.
The Global Alliance of
Disaster Research Institutes
(GADRI) will serve as a forum for
sharing knowledge and
promoting collaboration on topics
related to disaster risk reduction
and resilience to disasters.
GADRI will facilitate discussions
on: planning and organization of
natural disaster research;
formation of international
research groups to investigate
current global disasters;
establishment of an international
network for timely communication
related to natural disaster
research; and, other issues
relating to the promotion of
natural disaster research.
“By forming GADRI
bodies like ICLR will be able to
better coordinate, communicate
and share plans and information
with like organizations around the
world. It is key that organizations
like ICLR not just work to reduce
the impact of earthquake and
severe weather at home, but also
be plugged into international
organizations that are doing
similar work elsewhere,” Paul
Kovacs said. “GADRI will help
facilitate this coordination.”
GADRI’s structure will
include a president, a board of
directors and members. In
addition, there will be a
secretariat that will facilitate and
organize GADRI activities. The
first secretariat will reside at the
Disaster Prevention Research
Institute of Kyoto University in
Japan. CT
New Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes formed
4. 4
Being followed by the water
(page 79)
In June 2013, Toronto and the
rest of Canada watched as a
storm submerged much of
southern Alberta, causing untold
hardship for people in High River,
Calgary and nearby towns.
Just a few days after the
initial flooding – the rivers still
swollen and the downtown
covered in puddles – I watched
the news from my hotel room at
the Calgary airport, my eyes
glued to mayor Naheed Nenshi
as he addressed the city
throughout the emergency,
providing hourly updates and
warnings.
I was in town for the
unexpectedly well-timed
Canadian Water Summit,
relocated, within hours of the
rainfall, from the flooded
Saddledome arena to the airport
hotel. The event gave Alberta’s
water experts a forum to speak
with their peers between long
shifts of helping their family,
friends and colleagues salvage
their homes. A rapid-fire
breakfast session captured some
of their observations and outrage.
Their warnings had gone unheard
and Albertans were once again
about to pay the price of inaction.
Indeed, the Insurance Bureau of
Canada eventually reported
billions of dollars of damage to
infrastructure, buildings and
homes.
Back home,
Torontonians nervously joked
about how our city would handle
such an emergency. If similarly
fierce rains happened here, could
we weather the storm?
We should have knocked
on wood. Not more than three
weeks later, the skies above
Toronto opened and, with very
little warning, dumped some 100
millimetres of rain in just two
hours, exceeding the previous
record for same-day rainfall, set
on October 15, 1954.
The July 8 storm
overwhelmed portions of the
city’s sewer system, sending
more than a million cubic metres
of raw sewage into streets, parks,
Lake Ontario and the Don River.
It left 37 of 69 city transit stations
without service, trapped 1,400
passengers (and, famously, one
snake) on a commuter train for
three hours, left 300,000
residents without power, caused
major flight delays at both the city
and international airports and
flooded unknown numbers of
basements.
Leaving work that night, I
abandoned any hope of public
transit (streetcars were stalled in
the middle of the streets),
fashioned a makeshift raincoat
from a garbage bag and began
my journey home on foot. Darting
between raindrops on King Street
in the downtown centre of Old
Toronto, I watched with
amazement as a manhole
became a geyser, shooting raw
sewage into the air like a sloppy
Jet d’eau de Genève. It was
indeed a marvel, but hardly a
triumphant celebration of city life.
I was one of the lucky
ones. In the following months,
Torontonians would learn the
storm set a record for Ontario
insured damages arising from a
single natural disaster, triggering
more than $940-million in private
claims, according to the
Insurance Bureau of Canada.
Other estimates revealed
the storm would cost the City of
Toronto more than $60-million in
repairs, a mere $5-million of
which was covered by insurance.
Canadians are becoming
increasingly aware that climate
change is no longer some
abstract idea.
And, according to the
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, Ontario can
expect more frequent
thunderstorms in the coming
years. For an older city like
Toronto, extreme wet weather is
a growing risk and a serious
challenge. But if you remove
climate change from the equation
(I’ve left most of the hydro-
climatic science to my coauthor),
the city would still have a big
problem.
Here’s what I know.
Flooding is part of a natural cycle.
Healthy crops grow on fertile land
when floods spread nutrients
across fields. In times of drought,
a flood can help recharge
watercourses and aquifers. But
when we build cities and homes –
what photographer Edward
Burtynsky calls “human
systems” – near water, we
interrupt this natural flow.
Pavement acts as a barrier or
seal, forcing water to find new
places to go, with the result that
we put ourselves and our
environment (both built and
natural) at risk. And when
Toronto flooded on July 8, we
came face to face with our flawed
urban composition. We have
pretended we don’t have to follow
the rules.
The uncertainty of a
changing climate demands a
faster response, but making
decisions and funding action in a
municipality like Toronto can be
akin to moving mountains. An
unfit stormwater system, the
crippling cost of replacing it, a
host of competing political
interests and a largely oblivious
public prevent Toronto from
becoming a resilient city. Unless
we’re willing to accept further and
more extensive damage, it’s time
to make a big shift. We must
define what we value and
measure our actions accordingly.
Is Toronto up to the challenge? ►
X
Book excerpt
Flood Forecast: Climate Risk and Resiliency in Canada
Part two: Toronto
6. 6
Paul Kovacs, executive director
of ICLR, discussed the state of
science with respect to the
impacts of climate change on
communities in Canada, at the
Climate Change Summit in
Quebec City April 14.
Kovacs was part of a four
-member international briefing
team, joined on the podium by
Christiana Figueres, executive
secretary of the United Nations
Framework Convention on
Climate Change; Mark Kenber,
CEO of The Climate Group; and
Alain Bourque, executive director
of Ouranos.
“Climate change is
expected to make Canada wetter,
warmer and stormier,” Kovacs
said. “Across Canada we expect
more extreme rainfall events that
will destroy public infrastructure
and damage homes, more hot
days that threaten our health, and
larger and more frequent storms
that disrupt society. In addition,
we expect more coastal erosion,
permafrost thaw and wildfires in
vulnerable regions of Canada.”
Kovacs told the attending
Premiers, territorial leaders and
more than 100 other summit
participants that “the
consequences of these impacts
can be offset to some extent over
the long-term by reductions in
international greenhouse gas
emissions and over the near-term
by investing in adaptation.”
The current adaptation
priorities for ICLR set by its
member insurers include: identify
and promote best practices to
reduce the risk of sewer backup;
identify building design and
construction practices to reduce
damage to new homes; and,
identify actions for homeowners
to protect their property.CT
20 Richmond Street East
Suite 210
Toronto, Ontario
M5C 2R9
Tel: (416) 364-8677
Fax: (416) 364-5889
www.iclr.org
www.basementfloodreduction.com
Mission
To reduce the loss of life and property
caused by severe weather and earthquakes
through the identification and support of
sustained actions that improve society’s
capacity to adapt to, anticipate, mitigate,
withstand and recover from natural
disasters.
Western University
Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel
1151 Richmond Street
London, Ontario
N6G 5B9
Tel: (519) 661-3338
Fax: (519) 661-3339
www.iclr.org
www.basementfloodreduction.com
Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
ICLR’s Kovacs opens Premiers’ climate change summit
Conservation authorities, and to
a similar extent the City, realize
we can’t do much to stop the
storms from coming, but we can
be better prepared to handle
them.
We must adopt whole-
system thinking and create
useful, directive policies with
clear language and expected
outcomes. We must also adapt
our existing systems. Throwing
money at flooded basements
does not solve the problem, and
short of ripping up and replacing
all our pipes, we can never fully
remove flood risk. But we can
“slow the flow” with green
infrastructure projects and work
toward capturing and treating
stormwater before we release it
into Lake Ontario. With the
knowledge that the environment
fuels the economy (and not the
other way around), we can think
bigger than just protecting
basements.
For instance, could we
feasibly “daylight” some of our
buried urban watercourses to
prevent rain from entering the
sewer system? Even better,
could we move to a localized
urban system that doesn’t require
sewers at all? Dutch scientist
Grietje Zeeman works in this
space and sees “new sanitation”
– wastewater separated at the
source, recycled and returned to
the system – as the future. Can
we envision a world without
bypasses and overflows, or is it
too difficult for cities to see past
sunk capital?
True resilience is not just
about weathering a storm; it’s
about a new collective mindset.
As Lake Ontario Waterkeeper’s
Krystyn Tully asks, can we figure
out how to run a city and respect
the waterway that supports it?
Can we make a place for flooding
to happen?
When we develop land,
we need to demand smarter
design and hold the developers
accountable. City plans need to
include more places for flooding
to happen. Unlike Marie Curtis
Park in Long Branch, which
honours the people who lost
homes and relatives to Hazel,
and the reeve who came to their
aid, parks should not be built in
tribute to victims of disaster; they
should celebrate and respect
natural systems. They should be
symbols of progress. They
should encourage recreation and
bring people closer to water.
Finally, we need to act,
and soon. It took three major
storms, including Hazel – and
untold loss – for Toronto to
decide to turn part of Long
Branch into Marie Curtis Park.
We’ve learned since then, but we
still experience events that lead
to great loss. At what point do we
understand the risks, demand
action and make the move to
truly resilient cities? CT
Flood Forecast cont...