Assessments

Genivar and TetrES Consultants Inc. conducted a Water Resources Infrastructure Assessment Pilot Study to assess potential vulnerabilities within Portage la Prairie’s critical water infrastructure in response to climate change. Portage la Prairie’s critical water infrastructure was considered to include the city’s Drinking Water Treatment Plant as well as its water supply intake and distribution facilities.

Metro Vancouver and PIEVC cooperated in the jointly-funded Vancouver Sewerage Area (VSA) vulnerability assessment. The vulnerability assessment included all Metro Vancouver infrastructure and operations within the VSA. The catchment encompassed the City of Vancouver, University of British Columbia (UBC) campus, UBC Endowment Lands, part of the City of Burnaby and part of the City of Richmond. The VSA is approximately 13,000 hectares.

Passive cooling by means of pressured heat exchange pipes was developed in Alaska by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1965 to preserve foundations in ‘warm’ permafrost. It has been widely applied in Alaska, northern Canada and Russia to preserve and cool permafrost. The original simple 20mm vertical pipe with a radiator in the air has evolved into other designs that include: thermopiles, sloped pipe thermosyphons and flat loop evaporator pipe (flat loop) thermosyphons. The flat loop thermosyphon was developed and field tested in Canada in 1994 to allow the construction of buildings... click to learn more

The Town of Placentia, Newfoundland, was chosen as the focus for one of the two water - resources case studies.

This case study centers on four pieces of infrastructure in the Town of Placentia, located on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula and on the east coast of Placentia Bay. The community encompasses Dunville, which forms the northwestern section of the town and is connected to downtown by a lift bridge. The Placentia area is subject to frequent storms, which have caused serious flooding in low-lying locations.

This Quesnell Bridge case study was undertaken following the steps outlined in the PIEVC Engineering Protocol for Climate Change Infrastructure Vulnerability Assessment (October 2007) (the Protocol) which was developed by PIEVC for the purpose of providing a uniform platform in assessing infrastructure vulnerability to climate change. The five major steps in the protocol guide the practitioner in defining the project parameters and gathering relevant information, then, subsequently, in performing qualitative and indicator analyses to identify whether vulnerability exists in certain... click to learn more

This project was undertaken with support from the Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Program, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan and Engineers Canada). To meet the climate change challenge, Engineers Canada and its partners have established the Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee (PIEVC) involving all three levels of government and nongovernmental organizations.

The City of Greater Sudbury was selected as a case study in the roads and associated structures category. Dennis Consultants and Hydro-Com Technologies, divisions of R.V. Anderson Associates, conducted... click to learn more

The Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee identified buildings as one of four priority classes of infrastructure for consideration using the First National Engineering Vulnerability Assessment to gauge vulnerability and adaptability of infrastructure to climate change.

Three buildings – one low-rise and two high-rise – at Tunney’s Pasture Campus in Ottawa were assessed in this case study. The Sustainable Development Group of HOK Architects of Ottawa conducted the case study.

In 2008, Metro Vancouver and Engineers Canada cooperated in the Vancouver Sewerage Area (VSA) vulnerability assessment. The VSA study was one of seven original pilot study applications of an assessment protocol developed by Engineers Canada for use with all types of infrastructure across Canada. That study focussed on an area that is largely combined (i.e.sanitary sewage and stormwater conveyed in the same pipe) and currently undergoing significant change through an ongoing program of sewer separation (i.e. separating stormwater and sanitary sewage into different pipes). The Fraser... click to learn more

The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority is one of 38 Conservation Authorities in the province of Ontario. Its area of jurisdiction includes 3,467 square kilometres; 2,506 on land and 961 water-based. The TRCA owns and operates a number of large and small dams and flood control structures. The two large dams that are the subject of this study, the G. Ross Lord dam and Claireville Dam, located in the Don River watershed and in the Humber River watershed respectively, are actively operated structures whose operational procedures are integrated with the TRCA Flood Forecasting and Warning... click to learn more

The scope of the assessment encompassed the current design, construction, operation and management of this infrastructure as well as planned upgrades or major rehabilitation projects.

The Hope to Merritt section of the Coquihalla Highway, Hwy 5, in British Columbia was constructed between 1982 and 1986 through mountainous terrain bordered by the Fraser Delta to the West and the Cascade Mountain Range to the East.

The majority of the pavements for the Coquihalla Highway have undergone some form of rehabilitation and maintenance since initial construction in the 1980s. Since... click to learn more