Researcher retrieving data at Roberts Bank of the Fraser River estuary which encompasses intertidal, nearshore
sub-tidal and salt marsh environments. Photo credit: Eric Balke
Living with Water brings together a diverse, multidisciplinary team to help communities living on British Columbia’s South Coast prepare and adapt for sea level rise and flooding.
Climate change projections show BC’s South Coast, including the Fraser River Delta, Burrard Inlet and Squamish Delta, could be facing sea level rise of up to one metre in the next eight decades as well as increased flood scale and frequency—with resulting risks to residents, critical infrastructures, food security, and biodiversity.
Coastal flooding spans geographic and jurisdictional boundaries, and as such requires effective tools and frameworks for flood management across shared ecosystems and shorelines, including frameworks for collaboration, integrated policies, and design guidelines.
Living with Water will address this by developing new planning, design and decision-making tools that: 1) foreground community values and Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in coastal flood risk assessment 2) provide decision-support tools for alternative flood adaptation solutions (e.g. nature-based solutions, managed retreat, multi-functional dikes), and 3) support the development of multi-level governance arrangements for regional coastal flood adaptation.
In this video from UBC’s Coastal Adaptation Lab explore the challenges and opportunities that BC communities face in developing an integrated response to sea level rise on their South Coast.
For more information about Living with Water, read our media release and FAQs, or visit the website.
Theme Partnership Project: Began December 15, 2020 / Project Duration: Four years.
