Flooding in New Brunswick under Near-to-Medium Term Regional Climate Change

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Severe spring flooding of the St. John River (Wolastoq, in Maliseet) in the past five years has become a major problem for many communities along the river, costing millions of dollars each time to repair damages to homes, roads, bridges, farms, and other important community and provincial infrastructure. We anticipate that the timing and intensity of spring flooding will increase with global climate change. Potential shifts in flooding regime will occur as snow- and snow-rain-mix dominated catchments, particularly in the headwaters of the river basin, transition to entirely rain-dominated systems. An initial aim of this 5-year project is to study and characterise the biophysical nature of three recent flooding events, namely those of 2008, 2018, and 2019, with respect to variable topography, day-to-day variation in weather, levels of evapotranspiration, snow cover dynamics, and landcover change in the upper river basin. Findings from this study will guide the revision of an existing landscape-level, annual model used to derive fine-grained estimates of soil water content and surface water flow and accumulation, with an intent to estimate the day-to-day variation in surface water levels from 2008-2019. The revised landscape model with climate input from a regional climate model (i.e., RegCM4) will serve in the assessment of the near-to-medium term (2019-2050) impact of flooding along the upper St. John River network. This work will help identify localised-to-regionalised flooding vulnerabilities and exposures to communities, infrastructure, and plant and animal habitat along the upper St. John River, as a result of continued global climate change. Dr. Charles P.-A. Bourque will lead the research at the University of New Brunswick (Fredericton, New Brunswick). The proposed research will involve the supervision of one doctoral and two master's students.