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About disaster mitigation

Disaster mitigation reduces or eliminates the long-term impacts and risks associated with disasters. Measures are generally taken well in advance of a potential disaster situation. Disaster mitigation is best understood as an investment in our future.

One of the best known examples of investment in disaster mitigation is the Red River Floodway. It was built to protect the City of Winnipeg and reduce the impact of flooding in the Red River Basin. It cost $60 million to build in the 1960s. Since then, the floodway has been used over 20 times. Its use during the 1997 Red River Flood alone saved an estimated $6 billion. Other examples of successful mitigation programs in Canada include a hail damage suppression program implemented in 1996 in Alberta. By seeding storm clouds and inducing precipitation of hail, the size of the hail stones and the consequent damage to crops and property is greatly diminished, saving millions of dollars each year.

Learn more about disaster mitigation and Canada’s approach:

• All-hazards approach
• Importance of a national mitigation policy
• Types of disaster mitigation

All-hazards approach

An all-hazards disaster mitigation approach looks at all potential risks and impacts, natural and human-induced (intentional and non-intentional) to ensure that decisions made to mitigate against one type of risk do not increase our vulnerability to other risks.

Importance of a national mitigation policy

In the late 1990s, Canadians experienced three major disasters -- the floods in Quebec and Manitoba in 1997 and the ice storm in Ontario and Quebec in 1998. In addition to enormous human hardship and suffering, these three events cost the Government of Canada an estimated $1.5 billion -- more than triple the amount for all disasters of the preceding 26 years.

There is evidence to suggest that as climate change takes hold, the frequency and intensity of natural disasters will increase.

One third of Canadians live in areas that are subject to natural disasters such as flooding, earthquakes, tornadoes, landslides or hail.

Our changing social, economic and political environment and reliance on interdependent technologies will affect the way we experience disasters of all types -- whether natural or human-caused.

Practically every aspect of our lives is connected to an intricate web of networks -- physical and cyber -- that is essential to our health, security and economic well-being. Major transportation and environmental accidents and failure of our critical infrastructure systems can cause havoc in our society. Thus, the creation of a national mitigation policy is ever more important.

Types of disaster mitigation

Disaster mitigation measures include:

• Hazard mapping
• Adoption and enforcement of land use and zoning practices
• Implementing earthquake resistant building codes
• Enforcing building codes fire resistant 
• Flood plain mapping
• Hail storm suppression
• Reinforced tornado safe rooms
• Burying of electrical cables to prevent ice build-up
• Dyke building and raising of homes in flood-prone areas
• Disaster mitigation public awareness programs
• Insurance programs