Chignecto Isthmus, Canada's Nova Scotia – A tidal surge caused by the sun, moon, and Earth seven years ago pushed the sea to within centimeters of a national rail line that connected the eastern Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
The water lapping at the railroad rails signaled the peak of an 18-year astronomical cycle that would repeat in around ten years, which raised anxieties among residents aware of the constant threat of flooding.
The thin Chignecto Isthmus, a 21 km wide (13 mi) land bridge at the coast of the Bay of Fundy that serves as a crucial economic corridor and carries around $27 billion ($35 billion Canadian) in trade yearly, is now at risk of being inundated even by a strong storm (PDF). With sea levels in this area expected to increase by approximately a metre (3 feet) by 2100, and maybe by more than double that under severe scenarios, the hazards facing this small strip of land have never been worse. The Bay of Fundy currently has the highest tides in the world.
David Kogon, mayor of the town of Amherst, Nova Scotia, which is located at the southern end of the isthmus, remarked, "This might be the most vulnerable point in eastern Canada." The sole practical transportation route between the province of one million people and the rest of the country could be severed by sea level rise by 2100, potentially submerging up to a third of his town.Sea level rise will be a problem since "our province was birthed from the sea and is centered around our ocean frontage," Kogon told Al Jazeera.
Coastal communities in Nova Scotia are struggling with their extreme susceptibility to climate change as rising waters threaten to engulf more and more of the province. The province government established legislation in 2019 to control what can and cannot be erected on 13,000km of coastline, while local rules dictate how high above sea level new buildings must be placed, as coastal erosion is a problem in many towns and cities (PDF).
The Chignecto Isthmus, which links Amherst to Sackville in northern New Brunswick, is in an especially perilous state: Unchecked sea level rise, according to experts, might eventually completely bury this sliver of land, making Nova Scotia an island. Although the isthmus is unpopulated, a significant flooding event might have a direct impact on thousands of people in the two towns and have an economic impact on the entire nation.
The isthmus, which is shielded by a network of earthen dykes that were first constructed in the 1600s to allow for the expansion of farmland, is home to vital utility and transportation infrastructure, such as the CN Rail line and the Trans-Canada Highway. Wildlife, including moose that are in risk of extinction and bobcats, may only enter and exit Nova Scotia through the Chignecto corridor. The Nature Conservancy of Canada states that while the isthmus "serves as a crucial stopover point" for migrating waterfowl, several bird species that depend on these forested wetlands are under danger.However, the dykes constructed to prevent seawater from entering this area have often collapsed, most notably in 1869 during the Saxby Gale, a tropical cyclone. The storm, which bore Stephen Martin Saxby's name, wrecked the isthmus and destroyed farms as floodwaters burst the dykes despite the amateur astronomer and British navy instructor's warnings of the approaching torrent going unheeded.
Experts and locals have been advocating for a long-term solution for years as climate change has resulted in more severe and frequent storm events everywhere, not just in eastern Canada.
According to Jeff Ollerhead, a coastal geomorphologist at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick who has studied the Bay of Fundy, "sea levels are going to keep rising, extreme events are going to keep happening… and that's going to have economic consequences that just are going to get more and more expensive to deal with, and more and more challenging to deal with."The Chignecto Isthmus will be protected from the effects of climate change through a $540,000 ($700,000 Canadian) engineering study, which the Canadian government stated it will co-finance with the provincial governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 2018. The findings were finally published this past March after being delayed by more than a year.
Without the current earthen dykes, which were constructed to a height of about 8.5m above CGVD28, a tidal datum determined by mean sea levels at a number of Canadian tidal gauges, "much of the isthmus would be inundated by today's sea levels, resulting in significant negative socio-economic impacts locally, regionally, and even nationally," the study acknowledges.
Three options are presented for the governments to choose from in the study, which was carried out by the consulting firm Wood Environment & Infrastructure Solutions: raising the current dykes to a height of 10.6 meters; constructing new dykes; or raising the existing dykes to 10.6 meters and strengthening them with steel sheet pile walls in specific locations.The estimated capital costs range from $145 million to more than $230 million ($189 million to $300 million Canadian), while the operating costs would add $4.6 million to $8.4 million ($6 million to $11 million Canadian) annually – millions more than the provinces currently spend on maintaining the dykes (according to representatives for both provinces, the annual maintenance budget for all dykelands in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick is under $3 million ($4 million Canadian)). The project would be finished after a solution is selected and finance is obtained in about ten years.
The report, according to experts who have seen it, raises a number of concerns, including a protracted implementation period, a limited scope that ignores alternative viable solutions, and a hefty price tag that would at least in part be carried by cash-strapped regional governments.
Work on securing the area should have started decades ago, Ollerhead said, as the threat of flooding in Amherst and Sackville is significant.
He noted that seawater inundation might wipe out agricultural lands and severely impair the country's transportation system, stating that the threat was serious and that it might occur within the next six months. "The dykes may be overtopped today if a large, major storm happened to come straight up the Bay of Fundy."The Giffin family has owned the farm owned by Geoff and Robyn for many years. However, they are aware that the sod farms' proximity to the dykes in western Amherst endangers their ability to support themselves. On a recent afternoon, the long grasses covering the dykes waved in a strong wind as the filthy tide gently rose.
Geoff Giffin told Al Jazeera, "It's a significant issue because if there were a breach of saltwater inundating those fields, salt is kind of the worst enemy of the type of crop that we're farming.
The farm's productivity was impacted for years after a tide control device malfunctioned about ten years ago, causing saltwater to flood a portion of their fields. Soil remediation may be a time-consuming and expensive operation. Giffin recognized that a major flooding event throughout the farm's hundreds of acres of land would be disastrous and that "immediate action" is required.
Every level of government must collaborate with communities "to try to come up with a solution that's going to protect as much as possible," he said. "No matter how you slice it, climate change has been having impacts for a while now, and they're only building – and our governments need to be looking at this with extremely clear eyes, and recognising that there's going to be widespread impacts."Dozens of residences and businesses have been placed to a government-managed standby list in Cumberland County, the area of Nova Scotia that surrounds the isthmus. According to Mike Johnson, the county's previous regional emergency management coordinator, mass notifications would be distributed ahead of an impending threat.
Without a doubt, it will occur, and the water will rise above the dykes, he told Al Jazeera.
Jim Lamplugh, an Amherst local who has spent years observing the tides' rise and fall, is similarly worried about the possibility of flooding in this area. He organized the Isthmus Project in 2021 to bring together a number of significant community stakeholders for a public discussion on the hazards.
According to Lamplugh, "Our interest in it stems from having lived and observed first-hand when these storms, [2019's Hurricane Dorian] for example, would come through." "You'd travel along and you'd discover driftwood on those railway tracks" frequently following a particularly high tide.He is especially concerned about how sea level rise will affect the Chignecto transportation route. The Port of Halifax is Canada's gateway to the outside world, from which merchandise is subsequently transported by truck or train across the isthmus and into the rest of the nation. According to experts, a big flooding event could shut down this trade channel, causing delays and disruptions across Canada and possibly forcing exporters to look for alternative ports if Halifax is deemed untrustworthy. This would make Atlantic Canada, which includes the poorest regions in the nation, even more economically isolated.
Al Jazeera contacted CN Rail about the possibility of a cut-off in service, but the company did not react. Locals feel the likelihood of a disruption is growing every day.
Flooding would have a "staggering, mind-boggling impact," according to Lamplugh. "Trains, vehicles, and people won't be moving," the speaker declared. We are not prepared. We are in danger.According to recent estimations, experts predict that the sea level at the Chignecto Isthmus would rise by between 1m and 2.5m by the year 2100, with the latter figure indicating the worst-case scenario. When creating these estimations, a variety of factors are taken into account, from localized land sinking to global melting of Antarctic ice.
However, there are concerns about how much long-term protection this would truly provide. The government-commissioned assessment focuses on rebuilding or elevating the dykes by a few meters, despite what opponents claim was an unduly restrictive study scope. A solution like that might only stop the water for a few decades, according to Tim Webster, a researcher at Nova Scotia Community College and the head of the provincial division of the Canadian Institute of Geomatics.
Peak tides in this area bring the water level close to 7 meters, and Webster claims that a storm surge of 1.5 meters already pushes the 8.5-meter dykes to their breaking point. In less than a century, according to him, water might be spilling over the new dykes due to a probable rise in sea level of 2.5 meters. Future generations still face a significant risk even if the water level rises more gradually.The proposed height of 10.6 meters, in Webster's opinion, "is a good number for probably the next 30, 40, or 50 years – but looking further out from that, Nova Scotia's going to be here, people will still be here, and we'll be using that transportation corridor… it may not be enough," he told Al Jazeera.
In fact, experts argue that given the continued competition for resources on a global scale, the issue of intergenerational fairness in the framework of climate policy, which focuses on creating a sustainable environment for future generations, has assumed increasing significance.
According to Edith Brown Weiss, an emeritus professor of law at Georgetown University in the United States who specializes in environmental issues, "if we don't limit climate change, we pass the planet on to future generations in far worse condition than we received it and strengthen the inequities among people in future generations."
However, she continued, "Policymakers today don't pay enough attention to this larger long-term picture. It may be acceptable to construct earthen dykes in the short term to address sea level rise and climate change.
"Since sea levels will continue to rise, it is crucial to establish long-term feasible solutions from an intergenerational perspective."Plans to raise or rebuild the Chignecto dykes to reduce the likelihood of an impending flood are still cloaked in financial uncertainty.
The New Brunswick department of transportation and infrastructure, which oversaw the study, was contacted with queries from Al Jazeera by both the Nova Scotian government and the consulting firm that created the engineering report. The possibilities in the report are being examined, according to department spokesman Alycia Bartlett, in order to "identify the optimal method for protecting this key trade corridor."
She did not give a time frame for choosing a suggestion, but she did affirm that the planning, design, and building process, including any necessary environmental impact assessments, would take around 10 years once a choice was made and finance was secured.
In an email answer, Bartlett said, "We understand the gravity of this problem. "So, with our colleagues in Nova Scotia and Ottawa, we will invest the time and effort necessary to achieve the proper solution that will safeguard this vital trade corridor for many years to come."More broadly, Canada has been working on its National Adaptation Strategy to address climate change, a work-in-progress that intends "to help communities and inhabitants of Canada better adapt to and prepare" for its effects, such as sea level rise and coastal erosion. Uncertainty persists regarding the federal government's role in subsidizing efforts to safeguard the Chignecto Isthmus.
An Infrastructure Canada spokesperson, Jen Powroz, stated that Ottawa "understands the critical role that the Chignecto Isthmus corridor plays in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia's economic lifeline, and is aware that rising sea levels caused by climate change could directly affect the corridor." Infrastructure Canada is the federal department in charge of public infrastructure policy.
The department did not give a firm response on whether the federal government would contribute money to assist reconstruct the dykes. The provinces "may apply for money through Infrastructure Canada's many programs that offer help for adaptation, resilience, and catastrophe mitigation projects," Powroz wrote in an email to Al Jazeera.
It's unclear which federal entities would bear the increased operational expenses. The issue of money "has not been determined at this time," according to Bartlett in New Brunswick, who added that the province and its neighbor Nova Scotia were "working together with our federal colleagues to identify and move forward with the correct answer."Environmental nonprofit Ecology Action Centre's coastal adaptation coordinator Will Balser questioned how the tens of millions of dollars required for the Chignecto project would ultimately come to be.
He told Al Jazeera, "This is a famously difficult thing to fund," stressing that the difficulty is increased by the involvement of three different countries. We receive funding from two provinces and the federal government, and ongoing or infrastructure maintenance funding is particularly harder to predict or secure during an election cycle, or in this case, over three election cycles.
"I don't think that at the federal level they have any real viable option but to maintain the protection of… the transportation corridor through the isthmus, because it's so vitally important to the economy of the entire country," Kogon said, adding that Ottawa would have "no choice" but to comply.
Time is of the essence, according to Johnson, as the 18-year tidal cycle will peak in about ten years and bring another massive surge. "They're going to have the return of our king tides… and if they don't have something in place, then we could have some significant consequences as a result," Johnson said.In the midst of this urgency, experts argue that the government should consider a wider array of options, such as constructing a bridge or tunnel to connect Nova Scotia and New Brunswick or undertaking extensive salt-marsh restoration, in order to maintain the vital transportation link and safeguard the delicate coastal environment over the long term.
Earthen dykes are typically a better method for keeping back water than concrete and steel walls, according to Kristina Hill, an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley with expertise in urban design and environmental planning, "because they can be raised and even relocated without a loss of useful material." She told Al Jazeera that wider dykes—rather than higher ones—can reduce the danger of catastrophic failure in the case of overtopping. However, as sea levels continue to rise, it might no longer be worthwhile to attempt to manage a non-urban area using ever-expensive tactics, she added.
When people opt to accept seawater, Hill added, "a bridge or causeway would be preferable to a big roadway dyke." But a floating road would be much better because the crossing gets more difficult as sea levels rise. However, costs would have to be contrasted.Balser said the Chignecto research should have prioritized nature-based alternatives, such as establishing a salt-marsh buffer alongside the dykes to absorb part of the tidal impact. Balser concerns every Canadian spring and hurricane season that water will overtop the existing dykes. The research (PDF) briefly touches on the idea as a potential consideration if the government decides to construct new dikes as opposed to raising or fortifying the current ones.
According to Ollerhead of Mount Allison University, salt marshes are highly productive ecosystems that support a range of species and provide ideal feeding space for fish and birds in addition to their capacity to absorb wave energy during storms or high tides. He noted that since the arrival of early European colonists, more than three-quarters of the original salt marsh in some areas of the Bay of Fundy have been lost, and that any solution for Chignecto should include recovering some of it. In addition to potentially creating an additional revenue stream through carbon credits, such a system would require less maintenance.
"Building a dyke right on the edge [of the bay, where many of the current ones are], you're going to be constantly pouring money and materials over the edge, trying to keep that dyke where it is," Ollerhead said. "However, if you move the dyke back maybe 300 meters [and] develop a salt marsh… vegetation would provide natural protection." By using a more planned approach to system management, you may potentially significantly lower your ongoing maintenance expenditures.This strategy would need the destruction of a piece of agricultural land along the coast, which would be opposed by landowners. However, according to experts, such a solution would still be more affordable in the long run and better for the environment. A salt marsh would trap carbon, which would allow it to produce carbon credits to sell to other businesses and aid in financing the work necessary to conserve the isthmus, according to Ollerhead.
Others argue that the provinces should just let nature run its course.
According to David Knockwood of the Fort Folly First Nation, whose larger Mi'kmaq territory includes the Chignecto Isthmus, it would be foolish to put out so much effort into trying to stop the ocean. He claimed that the current situation was the result of "trying to be the master over the land and not cooperating with the land."
None of the three possibilities presented for the government to choose from impressed him.
According to Knockwood, "it wouldn't take much more than that to overcome the new standard of what they're looking to implement" on the isthmus if a storm like the Saxby Gale were to sweep through the area today. However, he added, "I was always hoping in the back of my mind that there would be plans to let the [water] flow freely again."
Instead of collaborating with nature, he asserted that trying to dominate it would be fruitless. It only serves to postpone the issue.
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