Resilient communities don’t just happen by accident
Today’s communities must ensure disaster and climate resilience are integral to their emergency and long-term community planning efforts.
Addressing future risk potential requires a deep understanding of local risk landscapes and how best to adapt, accommodate, protect, and retreat as these landscapes transform in response to our changing climate.
Our mission is to help Canadian communities map out hazard and climate exposures, identify those people, assets, and infrastructure at risk, and explore actions communities can take to enhance hazard resilience.
Mapping is at the core of risk planning and resilience building
Hazard Exposure
Where is your community exposed to potential hazard risks and how does that risk vary spatially across the community?
Assets at Risk
Once hazard zones are identified, which structures, roadways, important cultural and archaeological sites, and critical infrastructure are potentially at risk?
Vulnerable Populations
Who in the community is most vulnerable to hazard risks and where in the community are the most likely to be located?
Recent and Ongoing Project Work
North Shore Disaster & Climate Risk Profile
North Shore Emergency Management (NSEM)
We worked closely with NSEM to develop an ESRI Story Map that provides residents with information and risk profiles for eight hazard and climate-related risks common to the North Shore region's three municipalities and two First Nations.
North Shore Extreme Heat Resilience Report & Story Map
North Shore Emergency Management (NSEM)
Working with our partners Introba and Pinna Sustainability, Resilience Mapping Canada developed an extreme heat vulnerability assessment and online maps for:
20 Individual vulnerability indicator maps
Four vulnerability theme/category maps
Overall vulnerability map
Extreme heat environmental exposure map
Bi-variate exposure vs. vulnerability map
ESRI Story Map for the NSEM Extreme Heat Forum
Image: Dr. Reynolds and colleagues are conducting a survey in Tuktoyaktuk with the moral support of a representative of the local canine population. (Photo Credit: N. Hastings)
Coastal Storm Surge Impact Assessment & Map Atlas
Geological Survey of Canada / Natural Resources Canada
Working with the team from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and building on storm surge flood models developed by the National Research Council of Canada, we explored storm surge impacts for six storm events and four sea-level rise scenarios for the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories. Highlights of this multi-year project include:
Community engagement session conducted in Tuktoyaktuk
Field survey to assess heights of first-floor levels for flood prone structures
Development of structure and roadway impact maps for all 24 flood scenarios
Impact cost estimates and maps based on flood impact assessment using NRCan’s CanFlood tool
Major contributions to the project’s final report
Development of a separate Map Atlas containing a selection of the maps produced for the project
Project results currently undergoing internal review with public release anticipated in 2025
BC’s Disaster and Climate Risk and Resilience Assessment
BC Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Resilience
Building on the work of the 2019 Preliminary Strategic Climate Risk Assessment for BC, the Disaster and Climate Risk and Resilience Assessment (DCRRA) seeks to develop provincial and regional disaster and climate risk and resilience assessments within the province of British Columbia for five primary hazards: extreme heat; water scarcity and drought; wildfires; coastal and riverine flooding; and earthquakes.
Dr. Reynolds was an advisor with the geospatial team, responsible for gathering provincial and regional hazard exposure, asset, and social vulnerability data and generating hazard assessment maps for the provincial phase of the project. His work included developing the initial data management strategy and data sharing plan in cooperation with geospatial team members, a code-level review of geospatial processes and methodologies, and providing guidance throughout the mapping of hazard and climate risks. Phase I of the project, the provincial assessment, concluded in 2024.
Phase I results are expected to be released to the public soon, with work on Phase II anticipated to begin in 2025.
Disaster Risk Reduction Pathways
Natural Resources Canada / Canadian Safety and Security Program
Headed by Natural Resources Canada and funded through the Canadian Safety and Security Program (CSSP), the DRR Pathways project was a partnership bringing together researchers and practitioners working in hazard and climate risk reduction from government agencies, communities, non-governmental organizations, and academia to establish shared pathways to disaster resilience for British Columbia.
As part of the University of British Columbia team, Dr. Reynolds worked on three projects that contributed to the project in collaboration with community and government partners. The first explored social vulnerability in the City of Vancouver as part of the city’s seismic retrofit program using earthquake modelling from the Geological Survey of Canada. The second explored risk dynamics in the Metro Vancouver region: how neighbourhood changes over time coupled with projected growth can help estimate future hazard impacts. And finally, our team explored neighbourhood resilience, recovery, and recoverability metrics for the City of Vancouver.
Two of these projects were published as part of the Resilience Pathways report in 2022.
CHERP
The Canadian Hazards Emergency Response & Preparedness Initiative
CHERP is a research outreach and engagement project with the goal of making it quicker and easier for community residents to learn about, prepare for, and respond to local environmental and climate-related hazard threats. Working with our partner communities, we’re developing a mobile app that helps simplify household emergency planning, adapting to the unique needs of individual communities and households.