Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Methodology

The City of Saint John will develop a standardized methodology to quantify climate change-driven risks to all municipal assets, to identify and evaluate the associated climate change vulnerabilities and to incorporate this risk-based information into the City’s asset management plan. The project will focus on a selected group of assets from each asset category (e.g. water, wastewater, transportation, storm water, etc.) to be used as a pilot group to identify high-risk assets. The pilot group results will be used to develop a simplified climate change vulnerability assessment methodology for all municipal assets. In addition, the data requirements to evaluate the entire asset inventory will be identified and a structured approach to identifying adaptation measures will be developed. This project is a critical step towards reducing climate change vulnerabilities for all municipal assets as it will provide the City with a standardized methodology (customized to the conditions in Saint John) to evaluate climate change vulnerabilities and determine appropriate adaptation measures.The climate change driven vulnerabilities of each asset will be evaluated using a systematic risk assessment methodology that will identify and quantify the probability and consequence of failure of municipal infrastructure due to climate loads (i.e. the impact of heavy rainfall on drainage infrastructure or high winds on facilities). Both the historic climate and expected future climate conditions will be evaluated. The vulnerability assessment results will be scored using a simplified 1 – 25 risk rating for each asset, one with and one without climate change considerations. These risk ratings will be updated into the asset inventory, will identify assets with a high vulnerability to the anticipated effects of climate change, and will ultimately be used to identify cost-effective adaptation strategies for these high-risk assets. This project is directly aligned with Saint John’s on-going asset management program and improved management initiatives in the municipality. Saint John is currently enrolled in FCM’s Climate and Asset Management Network Program (CAMN) and is updating its Asset Management Policy to reflect the importance of climate change considerations in decision-making. The work completed in this project will be the main contributor towards satisfying the goals and objectives outlined in the updated Asset Management Policy. In addition, this plan will integrate into the existing asset management program by updating the asset inventory’s risk rating values to consider climate-change impacts.