Across CanadaNonstationary compound hydroclimatic extremes
The lab's core NSERC Discovery program: how compound and successive extremes change in a warming climate, and what that means for the design values and resilience of infrastructure.
Projects
Projects
Current funded projects and signature past work, with the partners, years and papers behind each one.
Current
Current projects
Across Canada
Great Lakes basinConcurrent and sequential flood hazards in the Great Lakes
An integrated framework for multiple flood hazards that strike together or in sequence across the Great Lakes basin under climate change, from WRF-Hydro simulations to flood frequency.
Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic coastsCompound flood processes and climate risk in Canada
A national framework for coastal and inland compound floods with Environment and Climate Change Canada: atmospheric, hydrological and coastal drivers, NEMO-based coastal hindcasts, storm attribution and machine learning emulators.
Tofino, Cuba and IndonesiaCIRCLE: community and infrastructure resilience
A New Frontiers in Research Fund project in which coastal communities co-design resilience to long-term climate and geological hazards through living labs in Canada, Cuba and Indonesia. We lead the climate change and coastal flooding component, with workshops in Tofino and Cuba and visiting researchers from CUJAE in Havana.
AlbertaNorthern Hail Project
A national NSERC and Mitacs Alliance project on the meteorology, climatology and impacts of hail. We lead the hail and wind-driven hail hazard assessment using field, radar and satellite data.
Caledon, OntarioClimate-adjusted IDF curves for the Town of Caledon
Radar and gauge records combined to update intensity-duration-frequency curves for drainage design, with projections under future warming.
Toronto and ten peer citiesEquity-aware stormwater planning
An NSERC Alliance and Mitacs project with Toronto Water and the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, reviewing climate-resilient stormwater practice and weighing benefits for marginalized communities.
Case study
Mapping a compound storm in Tofino
Tofino sits on a narrow peninsula on Vancouver Island, exposed to Pacific storms on one side and inlet flooding on the other. We rebuilt three days of a late November 2021 storm in a two-dimensional flood model to see where water went, when it arrived and how long it stayed.
Preliminary simulations show flooding concentrated along low-lying shorelines and inlet margins. Model evaluation against observed water levels, sea-level rise scenarios and a machine learning emulator trained on these runs are ongoing.
Field photos from the CIRCLE workshop in Tofino
Past
Signature past projects
Across CanadaClimate resilience of dams and levees
Completed in 2025: projected climate data and future design floods for dams and levees with the National Research Council. The resulting Canada Climate Viewer web tool for dam owners is now live.
Saint Lucia, CaribbeanCompound flooding and cascading infrastructure failure
Saint Lucia has short rain records and steep catchments that drain straight to the sea. We built a probabilistic flood model combining rainfall, river flow and waves for Tropical Storm Matthew (2016), then traced how flooding at the international airport spreads through operations, roads and tourism, and how fast each recovers.
Read the full case study
Lake Winnipeg and Great LakesWhat drives the biggest river floods
For Environment and Climate Change Canada we analysed the climate variables behind extreme maximum flows in the Lake Winnipeg watershed. The question now runs basin-wide in the Great Lakes, classifying simulated floods by mechanism: rain, snowmelt, rain on snow or wet soils.
Disaster rapid response research
Co-principal investigator on the SSHRC Insight project Can-3R, enhancing Canadian disaster rapid response research, 2023 to 2026.
Tornadoes and flash floods together
A probabilistic assessment of tornadoes and flash floods striking together in Canada, with David Sills of the Northern Tornadoes Project (International Journal of Climatology, 2023).
York Region flood risk model
Climate analysis for a regional infrastructure flood risk model led by Lea Consulting, which received a 2025 Ontario Engineering Project Award.
Earlier funded work
- Integrated risk assessment framework for compound flooding in Canadian urban environments, NSERC Alliance, 2020 to 2023
- Top-down and bottom-up assessment of river flood risk under climate and land-use change, NSERC Collaborative Research and Development, 2018 to 2021
- Compound flooding in Canadian coastal areas, historical and future, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 2023 to 2024
- Statistical downscaling of hydroclimatic variables for the Great Lakes, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 2023
- Stormwater modelling and climate change best practices, City of Toronto CivicLabTO, 2022 to 2023
- Impact of cloud seeding on hail damage in Alberta, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, 2020 to 2023
- Bias correction and merging of radar and satellite precipitation over southern Canada, NSERC Engage, 2019
- Nonstationary modelling framework for hydroclimatic extremes, NSERC Discovery, 2017 to 2022
- Sustainable water resources management for remote communities, Western Interdisciplinary Development Initiatives, 2023 to 2025
- Scholars Network for Building Disaster Resilient Communities, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarships, 2020 to 2024
Practice
Contributions to guidance and practice
Canada's Changing Climate Report 2026
Co-lead author of Chapter 5, Changes in the water cycle
CSA W224 coastal flood guide
Lead author role on the implementation guide for the Canadian standard on coastal flood risk assessment
ASCE compound flooding manual
Committee contribution to a manual of practice on compound flood methods for engineers