EMBRACE THE FLOOD

Abstract

The city Winnipeg, built on the wet prairie, has been threatened by severe flooding for decades. The initial decision to build the city at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers led to the inevitable consequence of recurrent natural flooding. The floods prompted the provincial government to take a series of flood control structural measures to prevent the city property. However, the waterlogging crisis has still not subsided.

During the significant territorial transformations in the last two centuries, the rivers and creeks have been heavily dammed and channelized. The hasty attempt at city development resulted in immediate economic benefits, but at the expense of eliminating the land’s ability to drain water through naturally occurring streams and coulees. Due to environmental impacts on a wider geographical scale, most notably climate change, both floods and droughts are hitting the extremes, which is escalating the challenge on flood management.

One of the main obstacles in this project is to solve the problem of threatening floodwaters and turn the negative impacts into the opportunities for a more sustainable lifestyle. Tracing back to last century, the indigenous peoples of the plains used to share a mutually beneficial living pattern with beavers and other species on the prairies. This coexistence approach towards humans, wildlife and nature deserves an opportunity to be brought back to Winnipeg. Through flood-mitigation measures based on natural processes, the urban hydrologic system is anticipated to move toward sustainable development and provide fairness and reliability to the living environment and urban ecosystems in response to challenges posed by habitat loss, climate change, and emerging conservation issues.