Collapsing roads is just the beginning of the devastation that heavy rains have on our infrastructures and that climate change will only intensify.
• Also read: Floods: Quebec to set up financial assistance program
• Also read: “You’ve never seen it before, such floods in mid-July”: evacuations and a state of emergency in Estrie
“Our infrastructure needs to be redesigned because in the past we never thought of building these roads taking into account these weather conditions,” supports Philippe Gachon, professor of climatology at the UQAM Department of Geography.
Roads have collapsed in several regions of Quebec, including Estrie and Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean, due to torrential rains over the past few days.
Increasingly intense
“Our infrastructures were created 50 or 75 years ago using a technique that predicted X amounts of precipitation. With global warming, we can have more precipitation in a short time or continuously,” explains André Monette, meteorologist at MétéoMédia, who also has a master’s degree on the subject.
Part of Route 243 was damaged in the municipality of Potton in Estrie. Courtesy of Potton Parish
Indeed, episodes of heavy rain like the one we have just witnessed will become more frequent, continues Mr. Monette.
“It is something that can be favored by climate change. Because it is warmer, the atmosphere can hold more humidity and precipitation falls more frequently.
Reconsider everything
Worse, when so much rain falls in the middle of summer in a warming climate, the soil is less resilient, which encourages flooding.
A hollow street in Saint-Raymond, in the Capitale-Nationale region. Martin Lavoie
“After heat waves, which can cause the soil to dry out, the first heavy rains don’t flow in, but seep away,” explains Mr. Gachon. It will have a big impact on flood and runoff factors.”
Virtually all of our infrastructure will suffer as a result, forcing us to rethink the way we build.
“Our sewers, our roads, our asphalt: the lining we’ve made of it will encourage runoff and therefore create floods and types of flooding we’ve never seen before,” warns Mr. Gachon.
The expert also believes that our engineers are not yet sufficiently trained to build with the effects of climate change in mind.
“Europeans have been reviewing their courses and curriculum in engineering education for years. “We in Quebec and Canada watch the train go by,” he laments.
Can you share information about this story with us?
Write to us or call us directly at 1-800-63SCOOP.