Tuesday, May 13, 2008

New regulations, climate change risk assessment to be unveiled this fall in Canadian Province

Canadaeast News Service: Homes, businesses, churches and highways inundated by the floodwaters of a St. John River beyond its banks: New Brunswick is ready to put this spring's nightmare behind it. But some nightmares recur, and this one may well.

Climate change means the kind of flooding that disrupted life for thousands of residents and damaged property worth millions of dollars this spring could become more frequent in future. That's one reason provincial officials plan to unveil a sweeping new regulation this fall that will restrict several forms of development on the province's flood plains -- including the St. John River's.

They are also preparing a broad climate-change risk assessment. It will catalogue every aspect of the province's infrastructure and economy and pinpoint where, and to what extent, they are vulnerable to climate change. Thanks to warmer, wetter winters and hotter drier summers, water is going to be the big adaptation challenge specific to New Brunswick, predicts Dean Mundee of the provincial climate change secretariat….

Confederation Bridge, linking New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, photo by "Ewok Slayer," Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

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