Severe weather and climate uncertainty represent risks to public safety in Canada and around the world, as well as to the safety of engineered systems and the services they provide. In this context, an increasing number of public agencies and organizations that provide public services address climate change adaptation as part of their primary mandate—protecting the public interest, which includes life, health, property, economy, culture and the environment.

The impacts of severe weather add to the existing stresses on infrastructure and the services it provides. In addition to factors that reduce the capacity and performance of these assets (e.g. age, increased demand, material weathering, design and construction inadequacies, lack of maintenance, or extension of service life beyond design),the increased intensity of weather events can produce an incremental load that would cause asset failure.

Infrastructure vulnerability and risk assessments are the foundations to ensure climate change is considered in engineering design, operations and maintenance of community infrastructure, buildings, and facilities. When one takes the time to identify the services and related assets that are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, one can plan and implement cost-effective solutions to adapt to these new weather patterns.

Creating infrastructure that is resilient to climate change is of particular concern in some of Canada’s more remote communities, given that these communities already operate infrastructure under extreme weather conditions. Additionally, access to these remote communities can result in difficulty addressing and repairing infrastructure failures, should they occur. For these reasons, Moose Factory is a community that will benefit from having a sound climate change adaptation strategy.

This report presents the results of the Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) study conducted for Moose Cree First Nation using the First Nations PIEVC Protocol, a methodology adapted from Engineers Canada’s Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee (PIEVC) Engineering Protocol.