Economic Assessment of Climate Change Impacts and Cost-Benefit Analyses of Adaptation Strategies in Coastal Areas of Québec

Support municipalities and stakeholders in their efforts to improve the long-term management of coastal development and assets and to justify certain preventive interventions.

Project details

Scientific program

2014-2019 programming

Theme(s) and priority(s)

Marine Environment

Start and duration

December 2013 • March 2016

Project Status

Completed

Principal(s) investigator(s)

Claude Desjarlais

Ouranos

Manon Circé

Ouranos

Context

Québec’s coastline extends over 6,000 km, from the St. Lawrence estuary to the Magdalen Islands and is home to numerous coastal communities, including a number of urban and economic centres. Coastal areas are also important for recreation and employment, notably for the tourism and fishing industries.

Climate change is already threatening these communities. Although research on the impacts of climate change has been underway for a decade in Quebec, the assessment of the communities’ vulnerabilities to these impacts, the estimation of impact costs and the identification of appropriate adaptation strategies have just begun.

Objective(s)

Assess the economic impacts of CC along Québec’s maritime coastline;
Estimate the costs and benefits of various adaptation strategies to coastal erosion and flooding and identify the most economically profitable solution from a societal perspective;
Integrate the results of the cost-benefit analyses completed in Québec with the results from comparable economic assessments conducted in the Atlantic provinces.

Methodology

Develop erosion and flooding scenarios for the municipalities targeted by the study -- Carleton-sur-mer, Maria, Percé, Magdalen Islands, and MRC Kamouraska;
Assess the potential impacts associated with the CC scenarios;
Identify adaptation strategies to minimize the potential impacts;
Estimate the direct costs and benefits of the adaptation strategies;
Quantify and estimate the indirect costs and benefits;
Compare the costs and benefits over a horizon extending to 2065;
Conduct sensitivity analyses; Estimate the overall cost of CC impacts for Québec’s coastal regions;
Calculate the cost-benefit ratios and the net present value for the analyzed adaptation strategies.

Results

Benefits for adaptation

Support municipalities and stakeholders in their efforts to improve the long-term management of coastal development and assets and to justify certain preventive interventions;

Continue to raise awareness around issues of climate change adaptation in coastal areas by mobilizing officials at different levels in the various regions across Québec;

Develop a basis to guide provincial actors in putting together an integrated, coherent coastal area management strategy that would promote the development of priority actions rather than scattered initiatives.