New illustrated standards guides for climate resilience in the North

Building in the far North has always presented unique design challenges, but with Northern Canada warming at more than double the global rate, immediate solutions are critical. To help address climate threats and integrate climate resiliency, Northern communities now have access to two new plain-language standardization resources.

SCC has been working with communities, standards development organizations, and experts from across northern Canada to support the development of climate-resilient standards, under the Northern Infrastructure Standardization Initiative (NISI), that consider climate change impacts in northern infrastructure design, planning, and management. New guides – available in English, French, Inuktitut, and Inuinnaqtun - summarize the contents of these standards, and support capacity and knowledge building for:

• CSA S504:19 Fire resilient planning for northern communities, designed to be used in conjunction with existing building codes, regulatory requirements, by-laws, and best management and construction practice guidelines; and 
• CSA W203:19 Planning design, operations, and maintenance of wastewater treatment in northern communities using lagoons and wetland systems, which provides northern communities with access to importance strategies to integrate climate resiliency into building and infrastructure design, guides, and codes. 

Canadians can access these standards for free until 2024, thanks to Government of Canada funding for the Standards to Support Resilience in Infrastructure Program. The NISI plain-language and highly illustrated guides will inform how infrastructure is designed, built, and maintained for northern communities in a changing climate.