Canadian flood risk portal doesn’t work yet and doesn’t consider climate change: report

By now, Canadians should have a portal where they can learn their personal flood risk by entering their home address. But that portal doesn’t work yet, and when it does, it won’t take climate change into account, says a new report from the Auditor General’s office.

The federal government has also been too slow to make and share flood maps needed to plan and protect homes and infrastructure and adapt to climate change, adds a new report from the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development in the AG’s office.

All of which could make it harder to solve Canada’s housing crisis.

“Climate change projections and easily available flood maps are needed to reliably inform long-term planning decisions, such as where to build homes or develop infrastructure,” said Jerry DeMarco, part of the AG’s office, at a news conference on Monday, following the release of the report.

“Canadians face escalating risks and higher disaster recovery costs in the absence of up-to-date information.”

WATCH | Flood mapping portal that doesn’t factor in climate change is of ‘limited utility’:

Flood mapping portal that doesn’t factor in climate change is ‘of limited utility’: federal watchdog

In their report Monday, Auditor General Karen Hogan and Environment Commissioner Jerry DeMarco found the flood risk awareness portal being developed by the Public Safety Department is of limited use to homebuyers because it ‘does not provide Canadians with scenarios that factor in climate change.’

Personal flood risk portal panned

One part of the report focused on Canada’s Flood Risk Finder. Public Safety Canada had promised to launch the handy cross-Canada flood risk database, similar to what’s available in the U.S., by December 2025. But that didn’t happen. 

The department announced on April 27 that “technical development” of the portal is now complete, although now provinces and territories need to opt in to make the information accessible.

When it does go live, it won’t include data about changing flood risk due to climate change, the new report found.

“We can no longer rely on only present-day data to plan for floods,” DeMarco noted at the news conference. “We also need to plan for future climate scenarios, including changing precipitation patterns.”

That kind of information is important to housing developers looking to build in an area and prospective homebuyers making the “most important financial decision of their lives,” he added. Without that feature, the portal is “of limited utility.”

WATCH | Desjardins to stop issuing mortgages in high-risk flood zones:

Desjardins to stop issuing mortgages in high-risk flood zones

Desjardins will no longer accept new mortgages for homes in high-risk flood zones. The move has some worried whether other financial institutions will follow suit — and that property values will plummet as a result.

About 80 per cent of highly populated areas in Canada are at least partially located in flood hazard zones, the report says, and it notes that the federal government’s spending on post-flood relief has been climbing, averaging $230 million a year from 2016 to 2025.

Insured losses are far higher — the Insurance Bureau of Canada says catastrophic losses routinely exceed $2 billion annually, most of it due to water-related damage, up from $456 million a year in the decade up to 2008.

Jason Thistlethwaite, an associate professor in the faculty of environment at the University of Waterloo who studies flood risk, said the report shows that in our current system, “we’re spending hundreds of millions recovering from floods, but we’re not giving people the basic information they need to protect themselves in the first place.”

Damage from floods is increasing due to both population growth in areas of high flood risk and climate change, which is linked to more frequent and extreme rain- and snowfall.

However, the new portal can’t be updated to add climate data, as it’s proprietary, purchased from a private vendor, the report said.

Public Safety Canada responded that it’s working on a new system with universities and government scientists that will incorporate climate and allow for updates, and will be testing it on pilot sites in 2026. However, it has not said when these will become publicly available.

Liam McGuinty, vice-president of federal affairs at the Insurance Bureau of Canada, said the information that’s expected to become available on the existing portal is already available to insurance companies and factored into people’s insurance rates “whether you realize it or not.”

He thinks the portal will provide trustworthy information that will encourage people to take action to reduce their homes and reduce their risk, such as installing sump pumps and backwater valves. Both governments and insurance companies often have funding to support this.

Risky areas not prioritized

To help with longer-term planning and development, Natural Resources Canada funds more detailed flood mapping and tracks which areas have been mapped. 

McGuinty said that kind of information, when made available to lower levels of government, will help make better land use planning decisions to lower overall flood risk.

In 2022, Natural Resources Canada had flagged 200 high-risk areas to be mapped by 2028.

It also committed to have the maps it funded publicly available by 2028, under Canada’s National Adaptation Strategy.

WATCH | Better flood maps could save lives. Why are they so hard to find?:

Better flood maps could save lives. Why are they so hard to find?

Flood risk maps help identify safe ground during a storm or flood and lay out where to avoid building, but they’re not readily available. CBC’s Tom Murphy breaks down why the maps are so hard to find.

The new report found the department didn’t actually check to make sure the mapping it funded prioritized higher-risk areas, and many projects didn’t. Only half of 131 mapping projects underway in Dec. 31, 2025, included some of those high-risk areas.

The government was also not on track to make the maps available by 2028, as promised in Canada’s National Adaptation Strategy. Of 131 maps underway by December 2025, just 26 had been completed and only 11 had been published.

In a response to the report, Natural Resources Canada agreed that it will collaborate with provinces and territories so maps are “made available to people in Canada in a timely manner.”

Such maps could help inform where to build new housing and infrastructure and how to best protect it.

McGuinty said, “If we can start making better land use planning decisions, ultimately that would have an impact on our risk profile and … the affordability and adequacy of insurance across the country.”

Thistlethwaite said the Auditor General’s overall message on the federal government’s flood mapping progress was clear: “These delays and gaps are putting Canadians at risk. And they’re making the housing crisis worse.” 

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/flood-mapping-ag-report-9.7186738?cmp=rss