If a flood hit your community, would it be ready?
A new report by the British Columbia Real Estate Association (which you can read here) is sounding the alarm over floodplain maps in B.C. cities – or the lack thereof.
“It’s dire,” says Tamsin Lyle, a Principal & Flood Management Specialist with Ebbwater Consulting.
“At the moment, there isn’t a good understanding of our lack of floodplain maps in the province.”
Only 21 per cent of 72 communities surveyed said they have updated their floodplain maps in the last ten years, and 31 per cent said they have no access to floodplain maps at all.
When asked why they didn’t have an updated floodplain map, the most common answers were a lack of funding, jurisdictional challenges, or a lack of expertise.
Lyle says the provincial government transferred responsibility for floodplain maps to municipalities a decade ago, and the decision should be reversed.
“Municipal government just doesn’t have the capacity, they don’t have the hydraulic engineers on staff to make decisions about this. It needs to be dealt with by higher level of governments…They need to have funding in place, and staff who actually know what a floodplain map is.”
READ MORE: El Niño event will lead to coastal flooding and erosion of B.C.’s coast
The median age of a floodplain map in B.C. is 1986, and Lyle says it’s an especially acute problem in places like the Fraser Valley, where the population has grown exponentially in recent decades.
“If they had information about living in the flood plain, they might be making different decisions about moving there in the first place, or if they live there, they can make really good decisions about how to renovate their house,” she says.
“It’s kind of a scary scenario, because they can’t make good decisions that would mitigate flood risk in the future. If they don’t know where the floods are going to happen, then they can’t make land-use decisions on who they’re putting in the flood plain.”
With B.C.’s climate slowly warming and an El Niño cycle on the way, Lyle says it’s important for governments to invest in planning and mapping, so worst-case flood scenarios can be avoided.
“At this point, we really don’t know what’s out there.”
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