Health effects of flooding in Canada: A 2015 review and description of gaps in research

Figures & data

Table 1. List of Canadian floods from Guha-Sapir et al. (2015); EM-DAT Database (2000–2015).

Start date	End date	Location	Deaths	People affected	Damage (US $)	Disaster number	Type of flood
9 June 2002	12 June 2002	North Western Ontario				2002-0404	Riverine flood
15 February 2003	21 February 2003	Bagder (Newfoundland)		1100		2003-0087	Riverine flood
31 March 2003	3 April 2003	Colchester, Nova Scotia	2	170	10,000	2003-0231	Riverine flood
4 August 2003	5 August 2003	Central Quebec		400	10,000	2003-0417	Flash flood
17 October 2003	26 October 2003	British Columbia	2	800	15,000	2003-0511	Riverine flood
28 March 2004	11 April 2004	Manitoba		1000		2004-0146	Riverine flood
13 July 2004	16 July 2004	Ontario, Alberta and Quebec			200,000	2004-0346	Flash flood
27 September 2005	29 September 2005	Newfoundland		600		2005-0591	Riverine flood
7 June 2005	1 July 2005	Alberta and Saskatchewan	4	5000	357,000	2005-0728	Riverine flood
18 April 2006	24 April 2006	Newfoundland		200		2006-0203	Riverine flood
12 April 2006	20 April 2006	Saskatchewan		1000		2006-0206	Riverine flood
22 April 2006	31 May 2006	Fort Albany (Ontario)		2000		2006-0224	Riverine flood
26 May 2006	2 June 2006	Aklavik (Northwest Territories)		300		2006-0261	Riverine flood
20 May 2006	28 May 2006	British Columbia	1	400		2006-0269	Riverine flood
6 June 2007	11 June 2007	British Columbia		500		2007-0165	Riverine flood
10 April 2008	24 April 2008	Ontario		400		2008-0170	Riverine flood
26 April 2008	1 May 2008	James Bay area (North Ontario)		2000		2008-0264	Riverine flood
1 April 2009	9 April 2009	New Brunswick		200		2009-0189	Riverine flood
4 April 2011	31 May 2011	Manitoba and Saskatchewan	5	2000	800,000	2011-0131	Riverine flood
25 March 2012	30 March 2012	Western New Brunswick		1500	34,000	2012-0068	Riverine flood
20 June 2013	27 June 2013	Calgary (Southern Alberta)	4	100,000	5,700,000	2013-0190	Riverine flood
4 August 2014	4 August 2014	Burlington (Ontario)		6904	129,000	2014-0319	Flash flood

Table 2. Summary of primary health impacts from flooding.

Health hazard	Examples of health impact	References
Mortality	Drowning, other asphyxiation	Lowe et al. 2013
	Non-specific, all-cause	Bennet 1970; Waite et al. 2014
Injury	Fractures, contusion, lacerations	Du et al. 2010; Doocy et al. 2013
Contamination of drinking water	Acute gastrointestinal illness	Vollard et al. 2004
Vector borne disease	West Nile virus infection	Ahern et al. 2005
Zoonotic disease	Leptopirosis, hook worm	Kovats and Akhtar. 2008
Mental illness	Post-traumatic stress disorder	Azuma et al. 2014
Prenatal stress	Low-birth weight	Brand et al. 2006
	Childhood obesity	Dancause et al. 2015
Hypothermia	Impaired neurologic function, coma	Lowe et al. 2013
Respiratory tract irritation	Asthma exacerbation	Du et al. 2010; Hulin et al. 2012

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