PIBC SCC Chapter Webinar: New Seismic Hazard Maps for the Lower Mainland (April 17, 2024)

This session was hosted for the Southcoast Chapter of PIBC, to support learning in the professional planning community regarding the multi-year project to map seismic hazard in the Metro Vancouver area and discuss potential planning applications and uses.
The session provides an overview of the Metro Vancouver seismic microzonation mapping project, outputs and potential uses. This project will span a decade upon its completion and contributes significant advancements in the science of seismic hazard in the region. The outputs will become publically available in summer of 2024 and have the potential to greatly improve all aspects of managing seismic risk in the region; from land use planning and development, to infrastructure/asset management, to emergency preparedness, response and recovery.
Metro Vancouver will now have the most advanced microzonation maps in the country, which is accordant with the fact that we have the greatest seismic risk. The map set (29 maps) will cover liquefaction, landslide and shaking (de/amplification) hazards. The geodatasets developed for the project will be made available as well, to ensure uptake and use of this important work in new and ongoing risk assessments, community and land use planning, disaster risk reduction planning, asset management and engineering projects, emergency preparedness response, etc.
Speakers
Sheri Molnar is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Earth Sciences at the University of Western Ontario and specializes in reducing uncertainty of earthquake ground motion prediction by advancing seismic field (outdoor) and numerical techniques to incorporate earthquake site effects into seismic hazard assessment. Dr. Molnar serves on the Seismicity and Site Amplification Task Group of the national building code and is a former director of the Canadian Association for Earthquake Engineering, and former president of the EERI British Columbia Regional Chapter.
Tamsin Mills is a Registered Professional Planner with 15 years of experience as a planner, project manager, facilitator, and climate adaptation expert with municipal and provincial levels of government, First Nations, and the private sector. Tamsin is recognized internationally as a specialist in climate resilience and adaptation planning and has been invited to contribute to guidance documents and courses, provincial policy, expert panels and peer review of federal reporting. She has been working at the intersection of climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction throughout her career and has led the development of numerous climate and hazard risk assessments and adaptation plans at multiple scales from university campuses to regional governments.
Jessica Shoubridge holds a Masters degree in Planning (MAP) from the University of British Columbia, with a concentration in Disaster Risk Management. Since moving to BC in 2009, she has worked with communities and organizations on award-winning projects that have taken innovative approaches to assessing risk and building resilience at the local (e.g. City of Vancouver Earthquake Strategy), regional (e.g. Capital Regional District Extreme Heat Analysis) and provincial scale (e.g. Updating the Provincial Hazard Risk and Vulnerability Assessment). Since 2016, Jessica has acted as the lead organizer for the Understanding Risk BC (URBC) symposiums; an all of society forum that brings together actors across the science-policy-action interface to address natural hazard/climate/disaster risk and build resilience in Southwest BC.