The Regional District of Nanaimo board has heard the concerns of residents regarding the impact of climate change to the region's coastal areas.
In 2024, the RDN launched an initiative called 'Our Changing Coast', a four-year program that focuses on building coastal resilience throughout the district. It entails technical studies, public outreach and policy development to help RDN residents, local governments and other interested parties better understand coastal natural hazards in the RDN area. It also details how these may evolve under climate change and identify approaches for how to prepare for and respond to these anticipated changes.
A public engagement initiative in the form of a survey was undertaken from October 2024 to January 2025 to better understand the concerns and awareness of coastal hazards and risk.
The results were presented to the RDN board at its regular meeting on April 8.
"There's a lot of interesting ideas and awareness from our community residents about some of the possible changes on the coast and those range everywhere from what's going to happen to my home to what's going to happen to my community or some of the coastal areas I really value," said Jessica Beaubier, climate change and resilience co-ordinator.
The survey, posted on the RDN's Get Involved website attracted 1,400 visits and received 116 submissions and 500 comments.
"That's a lot of people who took the time to share with us their concerns on the topic," said Beaubier.
Key concerns were impact to private properties, impact to those community areas that everyone care about and helped build, environmental. impacts to natural areas and habitats for birds, fish and wildlife, and impact to infrastructure such as roads, power and utility services.
Beaubier added residents also raised questions about the role and responsibilities of the regional district.
"Who pays for some of these changes?" said Beaubier. "How do I come into it as a resident? And those are all questions we are really looking to explore over the coming years as part of this project. Other questions was what is the RDN planning for the future to help us prepare and respond for this? What are the highest risk areas we see in our area and how can we better plan for future developments?"
The project is funded through the RDN's Growth Strategy Service with contributions from UBCM's Community Emergency Preparedness Fund and Natural Resources Climate-Resilience Coastal Communities Program.
The objective is to improve understanding of coastal climate risk from sea level rise, flooding and erosion to the area and how they may evolve under climate change, identify the best ways the region can prepare for and response to these changing risks and build sound collaboration to address the complex changes at arise in the region.
"It requires a lot of different minds at the table to respond to the scale of change," said Beaubier.
The regional district will conduct assessments on erosion hazards to the RDN's coastline and coastal risk to "understand where some of those hot spots are," said Beaubier. "And then working in building the engagement framework with the survey results and also contributions from DFO, the province, area NGOs, residents of course and then other voice from partner municipalities."
