Province could face climate chaos
Risk report lists drought, storms as top threats for natural disaster
REGINA It had been 140 years since the last devastating tornado struck Regina.
This one was far worse.
The tornado of 2052 traced a path much like the one that scarred the city in 1912. But this time it killed 150 people, injured 1,000 and left 13,000 homeless.
The punishing 325 km/h winds damaged the legislature, levelled much of downtown and triggered catastrophe at the Co-op Refinery Complex.
But the destruction didn’t end there. Four of every five Reginans emerged to find their homes damaged by the ensuing hail, which also battered surrounding farms still recovering from the province’s 10-year mega-drought.
The traumatized city took a decade to get back on its feet. The provincial government, already weakened by the drought’s $5-billion economic toll, lacked the means to quell unrest among the ruins.
That task was left to the armed forces.
It’s a hypothetical scenario, but a realistic one, according to the 250-page Saskatchewan Flood and Natural Hazard Risk Assessment released on Monday.
The work comes from the Saskatchewan Research Council, which drew on historic disasters to construct plausible worst-case scenarios. It found that drought and major storm events are now the province’s highest-risk natural hazards, followed by forest fires and winter storms.
And it foresees still higher risks by 2050, as climate change increases the frequency of extreme weather in Saskatchewan.
“When climate change impacts are considered, it is estimated that even greater future climate variability will occur, with increasing risks from droughts, storms and floods and potentially fires,” the assessment says.
The assessment’s basic methodology is simple.
It takes the estimated likelihood of a disaster and multiplies it by the potential damage it might cause.
The result is the level of risk. The assessment warns that Saskatchewan is vulnerable to winter storms, convection storms and forest fires, all of which can lead to loss of life and infrastructure damage. It pointed to the 2015 wildfires, which cost more than $100 million and forced the evacuation of 10,000 people.
But drought takes top place on the risk scale, due to the havoc it could wreak across wide swaths of Saskatchewan — with the potential to cause billions of dollars in economic losses.
“Droughts of the plausible worst-case scenario would have a major to catastrophic negative influence on the province’s agricultural sector and economy,” the assessment says.
The Prairies is already considered a drought hot spot. The dry conditions that afflicted Saskatchewan in 2001-02 resulted in $1.6 billion in lost agricultural production.
The assessment takes the drought conditions recorded in 1961 and extends them over a 10year period. That could cause traffic fatalities from blowing dust, put pressure on urban water supplies, and shave more than five per cent off provincial GDP. It could also lead to a population exodus from parts of Saskatchewan.
“The results of these long-term droughts could be very severe, including such consequences as people moving from one location to another similar to what occurred in Alberta and Saskatchewan in the 1930s,” the assessment says.
Climate change could make matters worse, leading to longer, more intense, more frequent droughts parching even larger areas of the province. The assessment says risks could go from “high” to “high to extreme” by 2050. The likelihood of grass fires would go up as a result.
Storms could also become more common and powerful by then, though the assessment notes there is uncertainty around how climate change will affect their formation. But it still predicts a “high to extreme” level of risk.
“A supercell convective weather system that includes an EF5 tornado, heavy rains, strong winds and hail having a direct hit on a large urban centre like Regina and surrounding communities is possible,” the assessment says.
“Such an event would result in multiple deaths.”
With storms comes precipitation. Saskatchewan is expected to endure more frequent heavy rainfall events as weather becomes more variable. The assessment predicts certain kinds of flooding will become more common in the coming decades, particularly overland floods.
Regina is at particular risk, with the report calling it the most vulnerable community to a damaging flood from Prairie run-off.
It might happen decades down the road. The waters would likely come in April, after a wet autumn and heavy winter snows. A late, rapid melt and significant rains would combine to unleash the deluge upon the city.
The dikes could fail. Homes and businesses would be inundated. Government operations would be severely affected.
“Human health and safety could be compromised, as a significant portion of the city would be evacuated and destroyed,” the assessment speculates. “It’s not out of the question that a dike failure could lead to loss of life.”
Those kinds of run-off floods will remain only a moderate risk for the province. But in general, the report says that a once-in-100-years flood could become a once-in-70-years event.
How can climate change increase the risk of floods and storms, while also triggering extreme dry conditions like droughts? The assessment offers an answer. A hotter atmosphere will lead to more extreme weather — and the extremes will work in both directions.
“The wet times are expected to become wetter and dry times to become drier,” it says.
While the assessment describes a robust emergency planning framework in Saskatchewan, it also points to concerns over inadequate planning for evacuations and communication gaps in emergency response.
It recommends restrictions on flood plain development in all municipalities, annual drought contingency plans and frequent risk assessments.
It also suggests stepped-up mitigation programs, including flood infrastructure, alternate water sources and better strategic fire protection equipment.
The wet times are expected to become wetter and dry times to become drier.