January 20, 2017

Climate Change Risk Assessment for the City of Mississauga

Context

The City of Mississauga’s Environment Division is performing a corporate climate change risk assessment involving the different divisions and sections within the city. The Ontario Climate Consortium (OCC) is a project partner for this work due to its experience in conducting risk and vulnerability assessments in the Region of Peel and Greater Toronto Area more broadly. In supporting the project team of this assessment, the OCC Secretariat will be collaborating with City of Mississauga staff to increase their capacity and assist in the development of this project.

Purpose

The overall goal of this risk assessment is to identify and assess the risks that the City of Mississauga could face in a changing climate. As part of this, an important component is to engage municipal staff across Mississauga divisions and sections to raise awareness of climate change, and build capacity to qualify and assess risk going forward.

Methodology

Future climate projections were initially developed in partnership with the Region of Peel, which were analyzed to provide locally relevant information in Mississauga. Through a series of workshops each division and section within the City of Mississauga identified relevant impacts and the likelihood of each of them occurring under current and future climate. Municipal staff then identified the level of consequences associated with each impact scenario (to finance, critical infrastructure, people, etc.).

Outcomes

The outcomes of the assessment and workshops include a list of risks (identified through consultations with city staff) for divisions and sections within the City of Mississauga, as well as a city-wide list of all identified corporate risks. This work will presented to city leadership teams and city council.

Note: Information of the possible impacts of climate change to the community can be found here.