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Not Waiting for Noah: New Approaches to Assessing Flood Risk

Identifying an appropriate communication channel or mode is vital to do through consultation or co-production as the context, specific user groups, location, gender and livelihood will determine whether the information is taken up or not. Questions to consider in this step include:​ How can this information be communicated most effectively to achieve application and uptake?

Introduction

The ‘Not Waiting for Noah’ workshop, brought together practitioners, professionals and experts from Canada and the U.S. to share food risk assessment tools; to build a community of practice; and to expose a broader audience to the subject and to a range of approaches. It was held in Kelowna BC on April 24, 2013.

The daylong presentations and discussions raised many central challenges to navigating food management and mitigation in the face of climate non-stationarity, while working with increasing population and development in floodplains. This report is organized around the themes that emerged from the range of issues explored during the workshop:

• Non-stationarity

• The need for risk-based approaches

• Challenges, needs and things that should be changed

• Risk assessment tools

In light of the challenges to achieving a more effective food management system, the intent of the Not Waiting for Noah workshop was, in part, to catalyse dialogue among a province-wide network of experts to develop a shared understanding of 1) what resources and risk assessment tools are needed; 2) what the barriers are to obtaining them; and 3) how these roadblocks can be overcome.

A floodplain mapping workshop, ‘Planning to Avoid Disaster’, was convened by the British Columbia Real Estate Association, drew nearly 70 people from the BC government, local governments, academic institutions, the business community, and First Nations on March 8th, 2013. The workshop produced an Action Plan to update British Columbia food maps. The Not Waiting for Noah workshop and this report are a further step toward improved flood hazard management in British Columbia.

Citation: Conference Proceedings Report: Not Waiting for Noah. New Approaches to Assessing Flood Risk. SFU Adaptation to Climate Change Team. January 2014.

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