Climate Risks Associated With New Housing in Canada

The report details a spatial modelling approach to assess climate risks for new housing in Canada, focusing on flood and wildfire hazards under current and 2030 RCP 4.5 scenarios. It describes the allocation of new units across 5,161 census subdivisions and the specific estimation methods used to determine average annual loss (AAL) for these new developments.

• Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) projects a need for 5.8 million new homes between 2023 and 2030, which would increase the country's housing stock by 34 per cent.
• The analysis focused detailed spatial modelling on 943 census subdivisions (CSDs) where 99% of the projected new housing units are expected to be located.
• To estimate flood average annual loss (AAL) for new locations, the study employed a four-tier prioritised methodology: nearest neighbour, contiguous flood susceptibility, sub-regional regression analysis, and regional regression analysis.
• The report identifies risk concentration by calculating 90th and 99th percentile thresholds of normalized AAL per unit to determine the potential flood damage that could be avoided by preventing development in the highest-risk pixels.
• Wildfire risk for 90.1% of projected new units was calculated using a cost-weighted hazard index derived from Canadian Forest Service data and Co-operators AAL data, with future AAL clamped to the maximum experienced by existing dwellings in each CSD.

APA

Canadian Climate Institute (2024). Climate Risks Associated With New Housing in Canada. https://climateinstitute.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/climate-risks-new-housing-Canada-technical-report-SSG.pdf

Chicago

Canadian Climate Institute. Climate Risks Associated With New Housing in Canada. 2024. https://climateinstitute.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/climate-risks-new-housing-Canada-technical-report-SSG.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Canadian Climate Institute |title=Climate Risks Associated With New Housing in Canada |date=September 2024 |url=https://climateinstitute.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/climate-risks-new-housing-Canada-technical-report-SSG.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{canadianclimateinstitute2024climate, author = {{Canadian Climate Institute}}, title = {{Climate Risks Associated With New Housing in Canada}}, institution = {Canadian Climate Institute}, year = {2024}, month = sep, url = {https://climateinstitute.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/climate-risks-new-housing-Canada-technical-report-SSG.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }