Erosion cost module to support flood risk analysis tool

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Rivers and river corridors are important components of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and provide innumerable ecosystem services that include draining the landscape, supplying water to downstream populations and mitigating the effects of large floods. River networks and floodplains develop over thousands of years and tend towards a balance between the amount of sediment supplied from the hillslopes and the upper catchment and the capacity of the river to transport that sediment by fluid flow. Rivers are thrown out of balance by the growth of cities because asphalt and concrete limit infiltration while the gutters on our houses and roads accelerate the delivery of water to river channels. Simply put, the rivers are not ready for so much water. Erosion problems are endemic, leading to degradation of the ecological value of the rivers and long term costs for municipalities trying to maintain so many kilometres of increasingly unstable channels. The objective of the current project is to build a tool that would allow municipalities and other stakeholders to anticipate the costs from erosion that may result from city building. Stormwater management and low impact development are expensive options to try to manage these issues - but so is doing nothing. Relatively minor investments now can pay for themselves many times over, all while helping to avoid the most damaging ecological impacts of development. The erosion tool will allow municipalities to explicitly compare various management scenarios in order to support better decision making at the time of development. ****