Public Safety Canada reports rising sea levels are impacting property and infrastructure values through damage, making insurance unaffordable or unavailable for high-risk homes.
The National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health (NCCEH) states that the Atlantic coast, the Beaufort Sea coast, and Metro Vancouver are the regions most exposed to rising sea levels in Canada. The Centre reveals that sea level rise is impacting Canadian coastal communities through increased flooding and erosion, damaging infrastructure and threatening water security and public health. Communities are experiencing the loss of coastal ecosystems, such as wetlands, salt marshes, and other crucial habitats that provide natural protection and support wildlife.
Saltwater is infiltrating coastal freshwater sources, contaminating groundwater, and threatening drinking water supplies for communities relying on them. Water contamination increases health risks and affects food security, while increased flooding and storm surges raise the risk of drowning, injury, and exposure to pollutants and pathogens. Displacement, property loss, and ongoing threats from flooding can lead to anxiety and depression. Increased mosquito habitat increases the risk of vector-borne diseases. Some areas may become permanently uninhabitable, forcing communities to relocate, thus disrupting community cohesion. Vulnerable populations, including Indigenous communities, the elderly, children, low-income individuals, and those with pre-existing health conditions, may face risks of permanent displacement and social disruption. The debated ban prohibiting oil tankers from carrying over 12,500 metric tons of oil along the B.C. north coast must remain in place to continue protecting it from oil spills.
Between 1975 and 2025, Canada’s sea level rise showed an accelerating trend, more than doubling to approximately 3.6 mm/year from 2006 to 2016 compared to the previous century. Projections for 2025 to 2050 and beyond indicate continued, potentially higher rates of rise, with some Canadian coastlines expected to rise above the global average. Specific future projections vary regionally but are estimated as 0.5 meters by 2050 for B.C., and potentially 1 meter by 2100, given future greenhouse gas emissions. NRCan also reports changes in ocean chemistry, such as increasing acidity and decreasing subsurface oxygen concentrations, as a result of anthropogenic climate change.
Public Safety Canada reports rising sea levels are impacting property and infrastructure values through damage, making insurance unaffordable or unavailable for high-risk homes. This forces cities to reconsider coastal-area development, update community planning to account for hazards, and invest in adaptation measures such as seawalls and restored marshes to protect the geography. The NCCEH also shows overloading of stormwater and wastewater systems.
The Canadian Climate Institute (CCI) highlights governments as responsible for flood risk transparency practices. The absence of enhanced adaptation and resilience measures alone in Canada could increase flood damage by five-fold in the next few decades and by ten-fold by the end of the century, costing as much as $13.6 billion annually. Improved flood risk transparency entails mapping, disclosing, and pricing flood risk to help individuals and communities decide how best to avoid, mitigate, or absorb damages and losses from flooding.
Across Canada, home insurance premiums increased by 20 to 25% between 2015 and 2019. More than half of it was attributable to flood damage. Every year, coastal communities face more frequent and extreme climate events, such as floods, wildfires, and heat waves, and in the north, thawing permafrost alongside rising sea levels. NRCan has a $41 million Climate-Resilient Coastal Communities Program (2023-2028) under Canada’s Adaptation Action Plan toward integrated regional-scale projects on Canada’s three marine coasts – Atlantic, Pacific, and North – and in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence region. This includes a combination of built infrastructure, nature-based solutions, and collaborative planning alongside Indigenous knowledge, flood mapping, and risk assessments. Canada has invested more than $6.5 billion in adaptation efforts since 2015, including $2.1 billion since 2022 to implement a National Adaptation Strategy and $3.5 billion for the Oceans Protection Plan.
CCI asserts that the need to impose limits on sea-level property development primarily rests with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, which manage land-use planning (where and how to build), while the federal government plays a supporting role through funding, data, and national strategies. CCI recommends enhanced land-use regulations, zoning, and building standards that direct development away from the most flood-prone areas. The USA Environmental Law Institute predicts that the multiple dimensions of coastal impacts will gradually reduce property values, undermine the financial condition of property owners and communities, and diminish the capacity to recover from major storm events. This is likely Canada’s expectation, too.
This post was submitted by Climate Scorecard Canada Country Manager, Diane Szoller.