The flash flood in Texas should be a wake up call to all Canadian communities, according to the Canadian Climate Institute.

Currently, over 1-million homes are at risk of flooding due to being built in flood prone areas.

Zach Carriere, a Senior Research Assistant in Adaptation with the Institute, provides suggestions on how to avoid flooding issues.

“We need consistently high quality flood mapping across the country. On average, across Canada, flood maps tend to be 20 to 25 years out of date. For rural areas, they are often more out of date then that. There is work being done to bring our flood mapping up to speed but that needs to be accelerated.”

Carriere said once this flood mapping is updated, it’s important that it be publicly available.

That will guide flood-risk reduction measures that will be the most effective in particular areas.

Those could include infrastructure such as flood walls or diversion channels and improving capacity of storm sewers and drainage systems.

Learn more about flood risk management on Thompson Today this afternoon at 12:40 and 5:10.