ICLR to host webinar on lot-level approaches to control urban flood risk and mitigate basement flooding

The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR) will be hosting a webinar in two weeks on lot-level approaches to control urban flood risk and mitigate basement flooding.

The webinar on April 21 at 10 a.m. Eastern time is part of the institute’s Friday Forum series. The seminar will discuss the issue of basement flooding in Canada and explore mitigation technologies that can help protect homes from water damage and reduce risk of basement flooding in urban environments, said information from ICLR. There will also be a presentation of results from recent laboratory and computational investigations into the performance of backwater valves and plans for future research on these topics over the next four years.

Andrew Binns, an assistant professor in water resources engineering at Ontario’s University of Guelph, will be one of the speakers. Binns, who received his PhD in civil engineering from Queen’s University in 2012, researches topics in the areas of urban flooding and the effects of floods on urban infrastructure, stormwater management and low impact development and river and stream restoration practices.

The other speaker will be Ed McBean, a professor of water resources engineering and Canada research chair of water supply security at the University of Guelph. McBean received his PhD in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973 and his research includes urban flooding characterization and asset characterization of municipal water infrastructure, the ICLR information said.

According to the institute, water damage due to basement flooding results in nearly $2 billion in insured damages every year in Canada. “More frequent extreme rainfall events, aging infrastructure and urbanization continue to exacerbate the economic damages associated with this problem,” the ICLR information said. “The risk of basement flooding, which can occur due to overland flow, infiltration, or sewer back-up, is affected by numerous environmental, socio-political, governance and infrastructure-related (both at the municipal and lot-levels) factors.”

ICLR reported that several approaches at both the lot-level and municipality-level can be implemented to greatly assist in mitigating the risk of basement flooding. These methods include low impact development strategies to reduce runoff from entering the sewer system and installation of backwater valves to reduce occurrences of basement flooding due to sewer back-up.

Registration Link:

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/884c3ffccbb944ac7510d14dfea9e911