Source: CCC
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Climate change is driving increasingly severe and frequent floods
Because of climate change, most regions in the country will experience increased rainfall, higher extreme rainfall, and increased severity in coastal storms (Zhang et al. 2019; Vasseur et al. 2017).
Research shows that climate change intensifies many contributing factors that combine to elevate flood risk, including heavier rainfall and storm surges amplified by sea level rise (Denchak 2023; Greenan et al. 2019).
Climate heating means that warmer air can hold more water than cooler air, increasing the risk of heavier and more extreme rainfall events. More rain is likely to fall in short, intense bursts rather than being spread out over a longer period (Westra et al. 2014).
Increasingly frequent and severe short-duration rainfall events increase the likelihood of flash floods, especially in urban areas, by overwhelming storm sewers and drainage systems (Westra et al. 2014; Sandink 2015; Brown et al. 2021).
Parts of southern British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces have seen an increase of two to three heavy rainfall days per year on average (Zhang et al. 2019; Vincent et al. 2018).
Climate models project that by the end of the century, an extreme rainfall event that now occurs once every 20 years in Canada could happen every five years, and the amount of 24-hour extreme precipitation that occurs once in 20 years, on average, is projected to increase by 12 per cent (Zhang et al. 2019).
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