In recent years, BC has witnessed flooding in diverse locations, including Bella Coola, Duncan, Stewart and Pine Pass. Most flood hazard maps and maps produced under the federal-provincial Floodplain Mapping Program were produced in 2004 or earlier and have not been maintained or updated.
While there is a price tag to updates, the Real Estate Foundation is investing in initiatives such as the BC Real Estate Association’s multi-stakeholder floodplain mapping workshop, which produced both an action plan to update maps and a funding guidebook for local governments in BC.
In June, Public Safety Canada completed an exploratory study, the National Floodplain Mapping Assessment – Final Report, to better understand the status of floodplain mapping in Canada. In response, we sent a letter to the federal Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness highlighting some of the work BC organizations are undertaking and encouraging the following steps (contained in the report) toward a national floodplain management framework:
- Document estimations of flood risk due to the high degree of uncertainty.
- Provide stream flow gauging to help with accuracy, particularly in un-gauged watersheds.
- Update standard methods for relating flooding to damages.
- Establish formal procedures to complete all steps of the mapping process.
- Place greater emphasis on calibration and ongoing updates/verification.
- Develop a national vision and set of standards that apply across Canada.
- Move beyond hazard mapping to consider risk to communities, industry and agriculture.
- Extend mapping along more rivers, particularly through urban areas.
- Consider events more severe than the 1:100 years in hazard mapping and flood risk assessment.
- Provide better public access to flood risk information.
- Update floodplain mapping across Canada.
– David Hendrickson
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