Flooding Related Consequences of Climate Change on Canadian Cities and Flow Regulation Infrastructure
1
Facility for Intelligent Decision Support, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Western University, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada
2
National Research Council Canada, 1200 Montreal Road, Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6, Canada
3
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Water 2019, 11(1), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11010063
Received: 26 October 2018 / Revised: 21 December 2018 / Accepted: 27 December 2018 / Published: 1 January 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Extreme Floods and Droughts under Future Climate Scenarios)
This study discusses the flooding related consequences of climate change on most populous Canadian cities and flow regulation infrastructure (FRI). The discussion is based on the aggregated results of historical and projected future flooding frequencies and flood timing as generated by Canada-wide hydrodynamic modelling in a previous study. Impact assessment on 100 most populous Canadian cities indicate that future flooding frequencies in some of the most populous cities such as Toronto and Montreal can be expected to increase from 100 (250) years to 15 (22) years by the end of the 21st century making these cities highest at risk to projected changes in flooding frequencies as a consequence of climate change. Overall 40–60% of the analyzed cities are found to be associated with future increases in flooding frequencies and associated increases in flood hazard and flood risk. The flooding related impacts of climate change on 1072 FRIs located across Canada are assessed both in terms of projected changes in future flooding frequencies and changes in flood timings. Results suggest that 40–50% of the FRIs especially those located in southern Ontario, western coastal regions, and northern regions of Canada can be expected to experience future increases in flooding frequencies. FRIs located in many of these regions are also projected to experience future changes in flood timing underlining that operating rules for those FRIs may need to be reassessed to make them resilient to changing climate.
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Keywords:
climate change; flood hazard; flood risk; return period; streamflow regulation rules; Canada
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MDPI and ACS Style
Gaur, A.; Gaur, A.; Yamazaki, D.; Simonovic, S.P. Flooding Related Consequences of Climate Change on Canadian Cities and Flow Regulation Infrastructure. Water 2019, 11, 63. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11010063
AMA Style
Gaur A, Gaur A, Yamazaki D, Simonovic SP. Flooding Related Consequences of Climate Change on Canadian Cities and Flow Regulation Infrastructure. Water. 2019; 11(1):63. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11010063
Chicago/Turabian StyleGaur, Ayushi; Gaur, Abhishek; Yamazaki, Dai; Simonovic, Slobodan P. 2019. "Flooding Related Consequences of Climate Change on Canadian Cities and Flow Regulation Infrastructure" Water 11, no. 1: 63. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11010063
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