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Photos: Metro Vancouver windstorm offers a peek into a future with higher sea levels

by Travis Lupick on March 10th, 2016 at 10:25 AM
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      Metro Vancouver is in the grip of a wind storm, which means social media is flooded with photographs of downed trees and similar wreckage.

      More interesting to me are the pictures people have posted of an exceptionally high tide that has crept up on downtown Vancouver this morning (March 10).

      Last month, I wrote a feature article about how Lower Mainland municipalities and the Government of British Columbia are already spending millions of dollars every year preparing for higher sea levels.

      For that story, I spoke with Tamsin Mills, senior sustainability specialist for the City of Vancouver, who highlighted that in 2014, council passed a bylaw amendment that increased the flood-construction level from 3.5 metres to 4.6. That measure was taken specifically to compensate for a one-metre rise in sea levels expected by 2100, Mills told me.

      Speaking from neighbouring Richmond, where the highest point is just 12 metres above sea level, John Irving, the city’s director of engineering, similarly told me that infrastructure spending has long taken into account data related to the impacts of climate change.

      Irving said Richmond’s flood protection strategy received a major revision in 2008 and remains on track to keep the city above rising sea levels well into the next century.

      “Flood protection has just been a part of business here for the last 100 years,” Irving said. “We spend about $10 million a year on upgrading, maintaining, and raising dykes, all with an eye on the long-term sea-level rise in the 100-year scenario.”

      While I’m skeptical of federal efforts to reign in carbon emissions, I finished researching that article feeling assured Metro Vancouver’s local governments are taking needs for adaptation seriously. This morning’s photos offered something of a peek into the future, and an unsettling reminder of how much work is still required.

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