Project: Emergency Water Supply Recovery Planning for Metro Vancouver: Co-Creating a Community-Ready Model
Principal Investigator: Dr. Firoz Verjee, Instructor, Emergency Management Division
Research Team: Tanya Henderson (Director CRIS); Dawn Ursuliak (Program Manager, CRIS); Amin Kassam (Metro Vancouver); Jonathan Helmus (City of Coquitlam); Darren Molder (Vancouver Coastal Health Authority); Emily McGuire (Fraser Health Authority); JIBC student research assistants.
Project Dates: 2026-2029
Project Funding: $360,000 (NSERC CCSIF), with $130,000 in partner in-kind contributions
Project Summary: A major Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake could disrupt drinking-water service to over one million Metro Vancouver residents for weeks or longer, yet no integrated framework exists to guide water prioritization and restoration across municipalities during a prolonged outage. This three-year applied research project brings together the Justice Institute of British Columbia, Metro Vancouver, the City of Coquitlam, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, and Fraser Health Authority to co-develop and validate a community-ready drinking-water recovery model.
Adapting internationally recognized lifeline recovery frameworks (NIST, FEMA) to Metro Vancouver’s context, the project will use systems analysis, co-design workshops, and simulation exercises to develop recovery objectives, consumer-class prioritization tools, and a regional Concept of Operations with operational playbooks. Approximately ten JIBC students will participate across all phases, gaining applied experience in recovery governance and public-sector resilience. The project will deliver a transferable model for prolonged drinking-water recovery planning at the community scale.
Partners: Metro Vancouver; City of Coquitlam; Vancouver Coastal Health Authority; Fraser Health Authority.
Outcomes and Benefits: This project is producing validated, implementation-ready recovery sequencing tools, defined prioritization criteria, and integrated governance models that Metro Vancouver, municipal, and health-authority partners can exercise, train, and update within their existing emergency management systems. Anticipated benefits include clearer operational recovery pathways, stronger protection of vulnerable populations during prolonged outages, improved coordination across regional and municipal institutions, and enhanced public confidence through transparent, equity-informed prioritization criteria. Approximately ten JIBC students are gaining applied training in systems analysis, equity-informed decision-making, facilitation, and recovery governance, strengthening the regional workforce pipeline in disaster recovery and public-sector resilience. Beyond Metro Vancouver, the resulting framework is designed to be transferable to other Canadian jurisdictions facing seismic or climate-related infrastructure disruption, particularly along the West Coast.
Funding and Support: This project is supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through the College and Community Social Innovation Fund (CCSIF), part of the College and Community Innovation Program.
Project Status: Active
Deliverables: TBA
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