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, economic interests, 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 could cause asset failure.

Infrastructure vulnerability and risk assessments are the foundations to ensure climate change is considered in engineering design, operations and maintenance of public infrastructure, buildings, and facilities. Early identification of the services and related assets that are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts is important to allow time to plan and implement cost-effective solutions to adapt to these new weather risks.

This report presents the results of the Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) conducted by Stantec Consulting Ltd. (“Stantec”) for Yellow Quill First Nation using the First Nations Infrastructure Resiliency Toolkit (FN-IRT), a methodology adapted from Engineers Canada’s Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee (PIEVC) Engineering Protocol.