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Note: Sea levels are rising at a pace unparalleled in modern times and storms are becoming more intense as a result of global warming. This story is part of a weeklong series examining our rising oceans, the impact on our region and what government, scientists and others are doing to track change and mitigate damage.

Click here to read the series.

Rising seas pay no heed to municipal boundaries.

It’s estimated that Nova Scotia sea levels will rise upwards of a metre by the year 2100 compared with a century earlier, a rise that will be consistent from Cape Breton to Yarmouth to Halifax Regional Municipality and all points in between.

The difference lies in the ability of individual municipalities to cope with and prepare for the inevitable sea level rise.

“We’ve done a lot of work on sea level rise over the past 10 years,” said Shannon Miedema, energy and environment program manager for HRM.

“We’ve been aware and gathering science and doing modelling for a long time.”

With a 2017 population of 431,700, HRM is already home to more than 46 per cent of Nova Scotians. The municipal population is projected to rise to 550,000 by 2031, which will then account for nearly 60 per cent of the people in the province.

With a burgeoning population and a geographical area the size of a small province, HRM could be expected to be ahead of the curve when it comes to municipalities preparing for rising seas.

This map depicts a worst case scenario for Halifax in the year 2100. - Tim Webster, a research scientist with the Applied Geomatics Research Group at the community college in Middleton

“The onus is on municipalities to produce their own plan,” said Jason Hollett, executive director of the climate change team with the provincial Environment Department.

“Everyone is going to be dealing with similar impacts but in their own context. You could be a town like Lockeport that’s an island, connected to the mainland by a beach. You could be HRM, which is roughly the same size as P.E.I. and goes from urban to extremely rural. Everyone is different in their context and everyone is different in their capacity.”

Miedema said the municipality has received federal funding through the National Disaster Mitigation Program to refly all of its lidar surveys that are required to make digital elevation models for flood mapping.

“Where land meets sea is really the most vulnerable area, and that’s where we really wanted the detail,” she said.

The municipality is about to award a contract to process all of the data into models and to rerun the flood scenario mapping.

“Then we are going to do another land-use vulnerability mapping exercise, first along the coast and then expand it to rivers,” Miedema said.

Under the 2014 municipal planning strategy, a vertical buffer for building along coastal areas was established in HRM and every coastal land-use bylaw within the municipality will be updated to reflect that vertical setback, said Alex MacDonald, climate change specialist with HRM. The buffer is 2.5 metres above the ordinary high-water mark.

“It’s essentially for storm surge protection,” MacDonald said.

He said the buffer applies to applications for new residential dwellings. Existing properties are grandfathered and the buffer height does not apply to commercial buildings. Marine-related use of coastal areas is also exempt, along with parking garages.

MacDonald said the setback is vertical, not horizontal. Only the Eastern Passage, Cow Bay land-use bylaw provides a horizontal buffer — 61 metres back from the coast.

“The environment is very sensitive, particularly freshwater areas are very sensitive to saltwater intrusion with wave run-up and storm surges,” MacDonald said.

A good number of the building developments along the water in Halifax, Dartmouth and Bedford does not belong to the city. Many are under the control of the Waterfront Development Corporation, a Crown company responsible for the development of high potential property and infrastructure, while others are owned privately or by the federal or provincial governments.

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HRM has the authority to permit development along the waterfront in accordance with bylaw standards but the municipality does not exercise much sway over existing buildings constructed on non-municipal properties.

“Our role and a lot of what we are working on is preparedness for big storms and extreme weather events,” Miedema said. “How do you have a more resilient community, how do you educate the public on what’s happening and what we predict to happen in the future and what are the tools they can use to better protect their homes, their families?”

Miedema said the municipality is working on river flooding to identify vulnerable areas, and it is partnering with emergency management and volunteer groups in every part of HRM.

“Volunteers get trained by our emergency people,” she said. “They are given satellite phones and radios and they have a gathering space in their communities for before, during and after an emergency. It allows for two-way communication between the formal emergency services and the local community.”

HRM covers almost 6,000 square kilometres of ground, including 2,400 kilometres of coastline. Some of that coastline is densely populated and some is occupied only by wildlife and delicate ecosystems.

MacDonald said it’s not realistic to have emergency responders everywhere all the time during an emergency.

“The community piece that is part of the emergency management teams are trusted members of the community – volunteer firefighters, nurses.

“They can effectively extend the reach of emergency management into those communities. They are a familiar face for people when the unfortunate happens. They are trained in natural hazards and human hazards. They are a really important knowledge base.”

The municipality has a handbook about emergency preparedness but it is a bit difficult to navigate and has to be updated, he said. HRM also worked on a joint flood mapping project that covers more than the past 100 years.

“Knowing what can happen in relation to what has already happened,” MacDonald said.

“We can tap into that local knowledge, ecological or local awareness of past events.”

Emergency preparedness garnered a sense of urgency after hurricane Juan ripped through the municipality 15 years ago, but Miedema said “you forget and get complacent.”

MacDonald is the lone designated climate change specialist on staff at HRM and Miedema is one of seven staffers in the energy and environment department.

“A lot of people in the municipality are working on climate change every day although that is not their designated role,” MacDonald said. “Our infrastructure engineers are constantly looking at what will a one-in-20-year storm look like five years down the road from now when we are designing storm water infrastructure.

“I often describe my role as herding cats. Lots of people are already working on this, it’s just a matter of bringing them together.”

From preparing to issuing contracts to reinforce the seawall along the Northwest Arm to thoughts of borrowing the idea of putting stilts under buildings along the harbourfront, the municipality’s planning for sea level rise runs the gamut of do’s and might do’s.

“We understand with the best available science we have now what the impacts of climate change could be in the next 50, 100 years but there are so many variables in the equation that we didn’t anticipate,” MacDonald said. “Hopefully, we can help to remove blind spots as we move forward.”