Inspired by Rebuild by Design’s Atlas of Disaster, the BC Atlas of Disaster seeks to visualize and map climate disaster impacts in BC in order to equip communities and decision-makers with detailed information that promotes proactive climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and climate justice.
Project Team
| Name | Affiliation | Department/Company |
|---|---|---|
| Ethan Raker | Assistant Professor | Sociology (UBC) |
| Jocelyn Stacey | Associate Professor | Allard School of Law (UBC) |
| Rose Zhang | PhD Candidate | Sociology (UBC) |
| Alison Shaw | Executive Director | SFU Climate Innovation and Action on Climate Team (SFU) |
| Lauren Vincent | Associate Director | Action on Climate Team (SFU) |
| Kate Earle | Research Assistant | Action on Climate Team (SFU) |
| Joie Zhang | Project Manager | Rebuild by Design |
| Johanna Lawton | Deputy Director | Rebuild by Design |
| Mathew Graham | BA Candidate | Sociology (UBC) |
| Drew Yewchuck | PhD student | Allard School of Law (UBC) |
Project Summary
The Atlas seeks to:
Mobilize
knowledge, tools, analytics and graphics to equip communities and decision-makers with detailed information that promotes proactive climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and climate justice
Describe
and visualize the spatial distribution of previous climate disasters and their impacts to communities in British Columbia from 2013-2023
Identify
data gaps and barriers that impede our understanding of climate disasters in BC
Document
climate-related disasters and disaster data in BC
Like the US Atlas of Disaster, we will ask:
What is the scale of climate disaster in BC?
The US Atlas of Disaster found that 90% of all US counties have issued climate-related disaster declarations.
Do government emergency responses track the most dangerous events?
The US Atlas of Disaster found that Arizona and Nevada, the states with the highest occurrences of heat-related deaths in the US, had low numbers of disaster declarations compared to all other states.
Which areas of the province face compounding risks?
The US Atlas of Disaster combined multiple social and physical vulnerability indicators (e.g. energy reliability, population density, health risks, sea level rise) to visualize where disaster financial assistance and new climate infrastructure could have the most impact to reduce compounding risks.
Currently we are analyzing:
Evacuation orders and alerts: Timing, duration, type of hazard
Heat exposure: Number of days over 30°C
Reported heat-related deaths: Along with demographic information
2021 Social Vulnerability Index: An indicator of the social and demographic profile of communities (e.g. poverty, renters, age of residents), used to assess sensitivity to and ability to recover from disasters
We would like to gather and map information on:
Local States of Emergency: Timing, duration, and type of hazard
Disaster Financial Assistance Payments: Amount and type of hazard
Utility Outages: Timing, duration, and type of hazard
What this could look like
Visit the US Atlas of Disaster website to see more examples!
Feature photo by: Pierre Markuse from Hamm, Germany, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
.jpg){kind=link}