A flood risk assessment to municipal infrastructure due to changing climate part II: case study

Abstract

Flooding often has devastating consequences. It is important to understand the evolution of these risks as climate changes. Municipal infrastructure is designed using historical data that no longer accurately represents current climate conditions, indicating infrastructure may underperform. The purpose of this study is to apply a new methodology for the assessment of climate change caused flood risk by Bowering et al. (2013) to the City of London, Ontario, Canada. Floodplain maps derived from climate, hydrologic and hydraulic analyses provide direct input into risk assessment procedure. Inundated infrastructure and high risk areas are identified in tables and maps for two climate and two hydraulic scenarios. Results indicate the most critical flood scenario is the 100 year climate change upper bound and high risk is driven by expensive infrastructure located in the floodplains. Results of the study are used as the support for climate change adaptation policy development and emergency management.

Keywords::

• climate change
• flood risk
• geographic information system (GIS)
• infrastructure
• water resources management

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the City of London, Delcan Consulting, Upper Thames River Conservation Authority (UTRCA), MPAC, Serge A. Sauer Map Library at UWO, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS), as well as colleagues Hyung-Il Eum and Dragan Sredojevic whose research has significantly contributed to this work.