How climate change played a role in the B.C. floods

Climate change, wildfires, and towns being built on former lakes played major roles in the flooding across British Columbia, says a climate researcher at Queen’s University.

“We've really grossly underestimated what needs to be done to mitigate the flooding that is going to occur in the future,” Edward Struzik, a fellow at Queen’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy in Kingston, Ont., told CTVNews.ca during a video interview on Tuesday.

He urged engineers to team up with climate scientists and meteorologists to rethink infrastructure, such as bridges, railways, and roads, with climate change in mind.

Failing to do this will mean the fallout from future flooding is “going to get worse before it gets any better,” he said.

Struzik, the author of “Swamplands: Tundra Beavers, Quaking Bogs and the Improbable World of Peat,” lays out four human influences that played roles in the recent flooding in the province.