Halifax's battle of the rising sea: Will the city be ready for future floods and storms?
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The moment when Halifax began reflecting on what sea-level change would mean to its future can perhaps be traced back to late September, 2003, when Hurricane Juan struck the city.
The storm pushed water levels in the harbour nearly a metre above the highest high tides, spilling seawater into the downtown core. Haligonians had not witnessed such water levels since the 1930s, with some people reporting starfish all the way up to Lower Water Street.
A 2004 municipal document noted that sea-level change "will seriously impact shoreline infrastructure such as seawalls and wharves and will threaten low lying buildings." Within a few years, Halifax Regional Municipality's council began gathering data to better understand the risks. It surveyed the harbour with light detection and ranging (LiDAR), a remote sensing technique that uses aircraft-mounted laser pulses to create high-resolution models that can identify areas that could flood.
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