Impact of future environmental conditions on flood protection and transportation soil slope infrastructure

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Almost daily global news reports some area of the planet that is experiencing or recovering from extreme weather conditions.  In many cases these extreme weather conditions lead to or contribute to some form of natural disaster.  Canada has experienced its share of natural disasters in recent years such as the Red River Flood of 1997 and the 1996 Saguenay Flood in Quebec.  During these extreme events flood protection systems acted to minimize impacts of the events and transportation systems were essential for operations to protect our communities through deployment of resources and evacuation of citizens.Many argue that the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events is increasing.  Global warming and climate change have often been identified as possible causes to the increase in extreme weather events.  Though there is considerable disagreement regarding the origin of these changes, there is growing agreement that climate change is occurring in some form and needs to be considered by engineers in design to ensure our flood protection and transportation infrastructure are prepared for future conditions.This proposal will develop tools to measure moisture movements at two sites in Manitoba caused by the local weather conditions.  A numerical model will be developed and calibrated based on the measurements from the two sites.  The numerical model will be used predict the impact of proposed climate change models on flood protection and transportation soil slope infrastructure.  Using the results of the predictions, a decision support tool will be developed to help planners and government agencies develop policies to upgrade flood protection and transportation infrastructure based on accepted risk levels during extreme weather events.  This will help ensure optimal spending of public funds to prepare our flood protection and transportation infrastructure for potential future changes in environmental design conditions.