Sea Level Rise Adaptation Primer

Publish Date

October 2013

Type

report

Author

The Arlington Group Planning + Architecture Inc., EBA, a Tetra Tech Company, DE Jardine Consulting, Sustainability Solutions Group

publisher

British Columbia Ministry of Environment

While actions to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions are critical, communities also need to prepare for unavoidable climate change and its impacts. This is referred to as “adaptation”. The BC Climate Action Toolkit’s Adaptation: Challenges and Opportunities page links away to key Adaptation resources.

Included on the page is The Sea Level Rise Adaptation Primer – a resource for local governments and land management authorities, providing information on a range of tools that can be used as part of a sea level rise adaptation strategy.

The climate is changing. In B.C. recent technical guidelines published by the Provincial government projected a sea level rise (SLR) of half a metre by the year 2050, one metre by 2100 and two metres by 2200.

Similar projections have been made by other Canadian provinces. Rising sea levels will cause coastal communities to become increasingly vulnerable to issues such as: coastal flooding and reduced drainage capacity; coastal erosion; changes to coastal habitats and wetlands (i.e. salt marshes); reduction in coastal sea ice; and more frequent and intense storms, storm surges and wave action.

How can coastal managers respond to this new challenge?

In order to deal with these issues, coastal communities will require resilience and adaptive capacity to ensure their long-term sustainability. The B.C. Ministry of Environment commissioned the preparation of the The Sea Level Rise Adaptation Primer.

The Primer is a resource for coastal management authorities to identify, evaluate and compare options for adapting to potential impacts and hazards on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

The Primer identifies four strategies (Protect, Accommodate, Retreat, Avoid) and 21 adaptation tools.

Find out more by downloading the Primer from the link below.

Authors: The Arlington Group Planning + Architecture Inc., EBA, a Tetra Tech Company, DE Jardine Consulting, Sustainability Solutions Group
Publisher: British Columbia Ministry of Environment