Jasmin Boisvert is a Water Resources Specialist with the Dept. of Env. and Local Govt’s Hydrology Centre.  Since joining the department in 2016, he has primarily been working on NB’s flood hazard mapping initiatives, updating the province’s flood modelling tools, and providing advice and expertise related to water resources to a variety of other projects and initiatives in the province. 

In this webinar, Jasmin will talk about the province’s unique geography and various types of flooding is creates, the costs associated with flooding, how the province’s Flood History Database is used, and expand on the 2018 and 2019 flooding events that occurred in New Brunswick.

Brittany MacLean works with the City of Fredericton as the Corporate and Environmental Performance Officer.  Brittany has been with the City for three years, beginning in the role of Environmental Coordinator, in which she led the development of the City’s Climate Change Adaptation Plan. 

In this webinar, Brittany will talk about the recent increase in flooding events in Fredericton, how the City has adapted its flooding response, future expectations around flooding in the area, and how the Climate Change Adaptation Plan, Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund, and broad partnerships will help the City address flooding in the future.

Cheryl Evans is the Director of Home Flood Protection at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo.  She served as a technical committee member on CSA’s Guideline on Basement Flood Protection and Risk Reduction (CSA Z800) and was a lead curriculum developer for the Ontario College’s Flood Risk Assessment Training Program.

Joanna Eyquem is a Professional Geoscientist, Chartered Water and Environmental Manager and Chartered Environmentalist.  Prior to joining the Intact Centre, she was National Climate Change Lead at AECOM Canada and previously held roles at Parish Geomorphic Ltd (now Matrix Solutions), Royal Haskoning DHV and Jacobs Engineering.  Joanna has an MSc in Environmental Technology (Water Option) from Imperial College London and a BSc in Geography (Earth Sciences) from the University of Exeter, UK.

This webinar will provide an overview of actions to reduce flood risk, from individual building retrofits to watershed approaches that work with nature.  An in-depth review of simple, low cost opportunities for residents to assess and reduce their home flood risks will be provided, including seasonal maintenance activities, low cost upgrades.

Simon J. Mitchell, Vice President Resilient Habitats for WWF-Canada, and Megan de Graaf, Acadian Forest Program Director for Community Forests International, will present jointly on their natural infrastructure projects in along the Wolastoq River.  Natural infrastructure, such as forests and wetlands, are increasingly being recognized as important and cost-effective for combatting the dual crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss.  In particular, there is increased interest in exploring the relationship between natural infrastructure and flood attenuation. This is especially critical in New Brunswick, given that severe storm events and subsequent floods are increasing dramatically and New Brunswick has had to access disaster relief funding after floods more than any other province in Canada.

Over the last number of years, Simon has been working with the Town of Florenceville-Bristol and the Municipal Natural Assets Initiative (MNAI) on a number of natural asset related projects – a modelling exercise that assessed the role of intact forest in moderating water flow, and valued that forest for its water-moderating role; and, is currently working on a natural assets inventory and assessment.  He will discuss natural assets within the municipal context and discuss the outcomes of the projects.  Megan will describe a similar analysis that Community Forests International undertook for an old forest property they own in Cambridge-Narrows, where they modeled the effects of clearcutting that forest and different climate change scenarios on overland flow and runoff into Washademoak Lake. The purpose of this analysis was to arrive at an estimated value for that forest, as compared to constructing a holding pond with similar water-retention capacity, and provide figures for a fruitful discussion about the value of ecosystem services (like flood attenuation) versus the timber revenues from clearcutting.