Resilience Scanner

Untitled Solution

record_id: recGXZIl7o9nbrF7r city: Vancouver solution_title: Hazard & Risk Explorer: Multi-Hazard Climate Information Platform quote: "Improve public access to information on climate hazards by completing a public-facing multi-hazard and risk story map." context: "At present, the City does not have an accessible way of sharing multi-hazard information about the climate hazards that would help communities understand risk and prepare for impacts. This story map was identified as an action in the Resilient Vancouver Strategy and will help improve public awareness of climate hazards." hazards:

  • Heat wave
  • Coastal flood
  • Forest fire ai_intensity_score: 25 models_used:
  • anthropic.claude-4.5-sonnet iterations: 13 searches: 18 validated_claims: 18 documents_scraped: 16 wall_time: 35m 0s repository: resilience-scanner-deepresearcher-2 commit: 7112fa66 uncommitted_changes: true branch: main script: researcher.py generated: 2025-11-01T21:11:28.775767

Solution Overview

The City of Vancouver launched the Hazard & Risk Explorer in 2024, an interactive online platform designed to improve public access to information on climate hazards through a multi-hazard and risk story map.[1][2] This initiative addresses the absence of an accessible way for the City to share multi-hazard information that would help communities understand risk and prepare for impacts.[2] The platform was identified as an action in the Resilient Vancouver Strategy to improve public awareness of climate hazards, with implementation led by the Vancouver Emergency Management Agency (VEMA) and a target completion date of 2025.[2]

Technical Components

The Hazard & Risk Explorer enables users to explore four key hazards: earthquake, extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and coastal flooding.[1] The platform contains spatial data indicating inequitable distribution of risk across the City, allowing users to navigate through each hazard to learn about the risks, how to prepare, and steps the City is taking to mitigate and prepare.[1][2] This system builds on the work of Vancouver's Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, which provides the City's overall approach to prepare Vancouver for five climate hazards including extreme heat, poor air quality, drought, extreme rainfall, and sea level rise.[3] The platform's development was informed by a Hazard, Risk, and Vulnerability Analysis (HRVA) completed in 2024, a high-level study of the hazards that may impact Vancouver and the potential consequences to people, property, environment, economy, and critical infrastructure.[5]

Implementation Details

The initiative was led by VEMA with a target completion date of 2025.[2] A comparable implementation in Metro Vancouver's North Shore region demonstrates the technical scope of such projects, where Resilience Mapping Canada developed a disaster and climate risk profile story map for eight hazards between August 2023 and July 2024 for North Shore Emergency Management and Partner Municipalities and First Nations.[4] That project included an introductory video integrated into the land acknowledgement, 16 maps of hazard exposure and historic events, many figures and photographs highlighting sections of the story's narrative, and information and links to local alerts and notifications, household preparedness guides, and evacuation guide.[4]

Benefits and Impacts

The Hazard & Risk Explorer helps users create a plan to protect those who are disproportionately impacted, prepare their home and gather supplies for each hazard, and find cleaner air spaces, cooling centres and other City resources.[3] The platform has potential to improve equity via access to information, though care must be taken to ensure information cannot be used for harm such as blue-lining.[2] To enhance accessibility, Vancouver provides printable hazard fact sheets available in 12 languages including English, French, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Tagalog, Punjabi, Vietnamese, Farsi, Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, and Japanese.[5]

Climate Adaptation Relevance

This approach directly addresses Vancouver's experience with climate hazards, including the devastating heat dome in 2021 followed by atmospheric rivers, which demonstrated the urgent need to prepare the city for a changing climate.[6] The platform specifically targets earthquake, extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and coastal flooding hazards, while building on broader adaptation planning for extreme heat, poor air quality, drought, extreme rainfall, and sea level rise.[1][3]

Sources