Canadian 'Design for Resilience' Recommendations

Larry Larson, well-known colleague at the US Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM), has drawn our attention to a recommendation by Canada’s University of Waterloo for a standard for new flood resilient residential communities. 

 

Research by the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation (ICCA) identified 20 best practices aimed at designing and building more flood resilient communities.

ICCA reports that 1.7 million Canadian households are at risk of riverine and overland flooding.

 

The report Preventing Disaster Before it Strikes: Developing a Canadian Standard for Flood-Resilient Residential Communities contains a comparison of existing guidelines and policies used across Canada, and recommendations concerning location and design of new buildings and infrastructure. The recommendations include that “safety factors” should be used in new community design to account for potentially more frequent and severe rainfall and stormwater system failures.

 

Mr Larson said that “these are good, common sense principles that any nation could use.”

 

The report makes interesting reading and it is available on the ICCA website here. Or read a discussion of the report in the Canadian Underwriter here.