flood will occur based on past weather patterns. The biggest inunda-
tion you would expect over a decade is known as a “10-year flood.” The
whole flood-protection system is calibrated around these averages to
make flooding that reaches homes a very rare event. With climate
change, though, such flooding is likely to happen roughly twice as
often. “What does this mean?” Weston asks. “By the year 2080, a 10-
year flood will have the same magnitude as the current 20-year flood
event. And a five-year flood will have close to the same magnitude as
the current 10-year flood,” Weston says.
All of which portends headaches for water managers and people
living in floodplains. And the number of such people is likely to grow.
“Large areas of the floodplain are currently occupied by houses,”
Weston says of the Lower Englishman River. “And much of the
remaining area is zoned for expansion of housing.”
Weston points to a photo of a handsome house sitting squarely on
the earth rather than on pylons. “This is a recently built house on the
floodplain,” he says. “Flooding on a floodplain is a natural phenome-
non, and it’s only a problem where humans have elected to use these
areas.”
WHITHER THEWILDSALMON?
As bad as this less-snow/more-rain trend may be for people, it already
poses problems for a beloved regional symbol—wild salmon. “Climate
change,” according to a report by Canada’s David Suzuki Foundation,
“is seen as one of the causes of a dramatic drop in Pacific salmon pop-
ulations along the west coast of North America.”
Kim Hyatt speaks matter-of-factly. For more than 25 years, he has
made it his life’s work to understand the sockeye salmon of Canada’s
Pacific region, particularly the Okanagan sockeye, the last salmon
stock of dozens that formerly returned from the Pacific Ocean to
Canada through the Columbia River. About 30 percent of all British
Columbia sockeye originate from warmer watersheds near the south-
ern end of the species’ range in North America, where these cold-lov-
ing, temperature-sensitive fish are highly susceptible to future climate
change.
150 Sally Deneen