Glossary of Terms

Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU)

A secondary, self-contained living space on a property that already has a primary residence.

Adaptation

Climate change adaptation refers to any process or action taken to increase the resilience of people, infrastructure, communities, and ecosystems, allowing them to better adjust to the impacts of a changing climate and prepare for future impacts.

Asset Class

This is a grouping of infrastructure by form, such as in fleet and public transit, or of function, such as water facilities, that collectively contribute to the provision of core services to a community. On Climate Insight, infrastructure is grouped into the following asset classes - Housing, Buildings, Fleet and Public Transit, Green Infrastructure, Solid Waste, Transportation, and Water.

Baseline Emissions

The initial set, or reference state, of greenhouse gas emissions data (usually expressed in tCO2e) for a given piece of equipment, infrastructure or asset, or portfolio of assets. Quantifying baseline emissions and creating an emission inventory is the first step of climate change mitigation.

Biomass

Combustible fuel in the form of organic material originating from agricultural crops and food residue, forestry and wood residues, processing by-products, algae, and energy crops.

Buildings

Buildings is a type of infrastructure/asset class that includes all publicly owned, managed, and regulated buildings, including recreational facilities and community housing, as well as any buildings and facilities that support other infrastructure types/assets.

Examples: city hall building, arena, buildings housing other processes (eg. wastewater or water treatment), fleet building

Carbon Sequestration

Any mitigation option that involves the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores it, either naturally (eg. vegetation, soil organic carbon, etc) or technologically.

Codes, Standards and Guides

This content category on Climate Insight is made up of the following types of documents:

1. Legislation, Acts, Regulations and Guidelines published/ enforced by a government authority
2. Accredited Standards, as recognized by the Standards Council of Canada or the American National Standards Institute.
3. Certifications by recognized third party organizations specializing in sustainable, climate-oriented, or energy-efficient performance.
4. Guides that support specific infrastructure options for resilience / emissions reductions.

Complementary Options/Measure

Infrastructure options/measures that work together with, or increase the benefits gained, from another option/measure.

Comprehensive Risk Assessment

A comprehensive risk assessment approach is one where the scope is wide and takes a system perspective. It either looks at multiple climatic parameters (eg. extreme heat, flood) or across multiple service or thematic areas (eg. health systems, engineered assets).

Conflicting Options/Measure

Infrastructure options/measures that work against, diminish, or negate the benefit of another option/measure.

Consequence

The impact on infrastructure, people, and other systems that a hazard would have should it occur.

Construction Emissions

Construction Emissions can be defined as the direct emissions resulting from building and construction activities, generated mainly from burning fossil fuels (to power equipment, vehicles, and stationary combustion for electrical generation) or releasing non-energy emissions (eg. refrigerants etc) during the construction phase of the project.

Coordinated Options/Measure

Infrastructure options/measures that could be considered alongside another option/measure for additional practicality, convenience, cost savings, efficiency, or time benefits.

Cost Range

On Climate Insight, cost range is used within the Infrastructure Options, Codes, Standards, and Guidelines, and Tools to help illustrate the range of financial costs associated with each activity. The table below shows the definitions of the various symbolizations of costs.

• Definitions/Ranges for Infrastructure Options
  • No Cost: Free
  • Operational Cost: The option can be done within the allocated operational budget and/or not require a request for proposal.
  • $: <$75K
  • $$: $75-500K
  • $$$: $500K-$2M
  • $$$$: $2M-$10M
  • $$$$$: >$10M
• Definitions/Ranges for Codes, Standards, Guidelines
  • No Cost: Free to download or online view access is available
  • $: <$500
  • $$: >$500
• Definitions/Ranges for Tools
  • No Cost: Free
  • $: Requires purchase of the tool
  • $$: Requires additional costs (eg. consulting support for implementation)

Direct Alterations to the Asset(s)

This selection refers to projects that require the infrastructure itself is enhanced, reinforced, or otherwise altered to make it more resilient to a specific hazard.

Direct Emissions

A mitigation category focused on reducing non-energy, GHG emissions from organic waste, refrigerants, fugitive emissions, etc.

Carbon sequestration involves increasing the carbon stocks or rate of removing carbon from the atmosphere through natural or technological processes.

Direct Impacts

Refers to tangible, physical damage caused by a climate hazard on natural, hybrid, or grey infrastructure. (for comparison, see Indirect Impacts)

Dissemination Area

A dissemination area (DA) is the smallest standard geographic unit for which all Statistics Canada census data are disseminated, with an average population of 400 to 700 persons.

Drain Flow Rate

The speed at which a volume of water or wastewater can be removed from an area using a drainage system per unit of time.

Economic Dependency

On Climate Insight, economic dependency is one of the themes or dimensions of the Social Vulnerability Index relating to reliance on the workforce, or a dependence on sources of income other than employment income.

Electrical Efficiency

On Climate Insight, electrical efficiency is defined as any option that reduces energy use through improved electrical and/or mechanical systems.

Embodied Carbon

Embodied carbon is the upstream carbon and greenhouse gases emitted from the construction process and the materials used in a piece of infrastructure. These upstream stages can include material extraction, manufacturing or processing, and transportation.

Emissions Calculator

Any tool that calculates the greenhouse gas emissions of a particular infrastructure type/asset.

Energy Efficiency

A mitigation option category that includes reducing energy losses with improved thermal efficiency (includes building envelope, process heat, etc.), reducing energy use through improved electro/mechanical systems efficiency and conservation, and improved energy efficiency through operational practices and controls and/or infrastructure-related policy changes.

Energy Modelling

Any tool that simulates the energy flows and systems of a building(s) or process(es) in order to analyse and determine the energy consumption and opportunities for energy savings.

Energy Poverty

According to Efficiency Canada, Energy Poverty is not formally defined in Canada but is commonly understood as the situation where a household is unable to access adequate energy to maintain wellbeing at home. This can mean that a disproportionate amount of their income goes toward their energy bills. For more information visit https://www.efficiencycanada.org/energy-poverty-in-canada/.

A common approach, and the approach taken on Climate Insight is to quantitatively define Energy Poverty as spending more than 6% of after-tax income on home energy expenses.

Estimated Remaining Useful Life

The estimated remaining useful life (may also be called service life or asset life), is the difference between the asset age and the expected service life (the time, in years, that an asset is expected to be productive and in use).

Ethno-Cultural Composition

On Climate Insight, ethno-cultural composition is one of the themes or dimensions of the Social Vulnerability Index relating to the community make-up of immigrant populations and those self-identifying as visible minorities.

Expected Useful Life

On Climate Insight, expected useful life is the length of time the equipment/infrastructure is expected to last before requiring major maintenance, retrofitting, or replacement. This can be aligned with a manufacturer's warranty, or industry averages.

Extreme Heat

Extreme heat is a prolonged period of temperatures that are above the average summer high for a specific region and often include periods with higher than normal humidity and high overnight low temperatures. This can put stress on the health of individuals using or working in the area, as well as causing heat stress on infrastructure. The definition of extreme heat may vary by region because of each location’s specific averages. For further information on specific thresholds, refer to Environment Canada.

Fleet and Public Transit

This infrastructure type /asset class refers to all motorized mobile vehicles and equipment, including government-owned/operated trucks, passenger vehicles, parks maintenance equipment, as well as buses, trains, or ferries.

Flood Protection Elevation

The height at which a structure, house, or building is protected in the event of a flood. Required height can vary from location to location and is based on the storm return period.

Flooding

Flooding is a hazard that occurs when an area of dry land is partially or completely inundated. Flooding can be caused by extreme precipitation (pluvial flooding), river or lakes breaching banks (fluvial flooding), ice-jams, and groundwater upwelling. Flooding is also possible through stormwater infrastructure when the volume of precipitation exceeds the capacity of the stormwater system and enters homes or other buildings through pipe back ups. Coastal flooding brings water inland through a combination of sea level rise, storm surges, and higher tides. This can have additional impacts to infrastructure from erosion as water flows into areas not built to accommodate or withstand it.

Floodproofing - Dry

Infrastructure options/measures that reduce flood impacts and water damage by restricting or preventing water infiltration into the enclosed structure or building. These options/measures aim to maintain a dry interior environment during a flood event.

Floodproofing - Wet

Infrastructure options/measures that reduce flood impacts and water damage by allowing water infiltration into certain areas of the structure or building. These options/measures allow certain areas to get wet and focus on overall damage reduction. Best implemented when dry floodproofing is not possible or too costly.

Fuel Switching

A mitigation option category that includes any action that involves switching to low or zero carbon fuels/energy (eg. renewable energy systems, electric vehicles, etc.).

Global Warming Potential

All greenhouse gases (GHGs) are not equal. Each one has a unique atmospheric lifetime and heat-trapping potential. The Global Warming Potential (GWP) metric examines each greenhouse gas’s ability to trap heat in the atmosphere compared to carbon dioxide (CO2). We measure this over a specified time horizon. Often, we calculate GHG emissions in terms of how much CO2 is essential to produce a similar warming effect over the chosen time horizon. This is the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 eq) value. We calculate it by multiplying the amount of gas by its accompanying global warming potential (GWP). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provided 100-year GWPs in its Fifth Assessment Report. (Government of Canada)

Green Infrastructure

On Climate Insight, this infrastructure type/ asset class includes natural and hybrid solutions. Green Infrastructure is the natural vegetative systems, engineered and built features, and green technologies that collectively provide society with a multitude of economic, environmental and social outcomes (Click here for a visual illustration of the infrastructure and solution types).

Grey Solution

Climate Insight defines grey solutions to be any infrastructure options that are made exclusively of engineered materials such as concrete and steel (Click here for a visual illustration of the infrastructure and solution types).

Hazard

Hazard refers to the possible, future occurrence of natural or human-induced physical events that may have adverse effects on vulnerable and exposed elements. It can be thought of as the type of stressor or the natural phenomenon that may potentially threaten green, grey or hybrid infrastructure. On Climate Insight, we have used the term hazard to refer to climate-related physical events as well as their physical impacts, where appropriate.

Housing

This asset class is a subset of the Buildings infrastructure type, and refers only to residential use buildings. Housing includes single-family detached, semi-detached, and row housing, as well as low-rise multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs) covered under Part 9 of the National Building Code of Canada (three storeys or less, area not exceeding 600 sq. m). Larger MURBs not covered under Part 9 are generally considered under the Buildings infrastructure type, as considerations can be more aligned with a large facility, rather than individual housing units.

Housing - Affordable

Housing is considered affordable when 30% or less of the annual household gross income goes toward paying for housing costs.

Housing - Non-market

Rental or for sale housing provided for income groups not served by the private market.

Hybrid Solution

Climate Insight defines hybrid solutions to be any infrastructure option that incorporates elements of grey infrastructure to enhance or support natural infrastructure and/or the use of ecosystem processes. Hybrid solutions encompass enhanced and engineered assets, and are synonymous with low-impact development (Click here for a visual illustration of the infrastructure and solution types).

Immediate Vicinity

This selection includes both direct alterations to the asset and any options that can be implemented within the site's property boundaries

Indigenous Community

Self-governed First Nations, Inuit, or Metis community.

Indirect Impacts

Refers to both tangible and intangible secondary/cascading effects of a climate hazard’s direct impacts. These have been categorized into five groupings:

• Public health and safety - impacts that may cause increased exposure to injury, disease, or that may exacerbate existing conditions leading to negative health outcomes.
• Local economy and growth - impacts that may cause interruptions to supply chains, reduce clientele, or that could possibly impact financial situations, exacerbating existing financial stresses on people and businesses.
• Community and lifestyle - impacts to the social fabric of a community, including how people conduct their day-to-day activities, social relationships, and recreation.
• Environment and sustainability - impacts to the greater natural environment, including pollutant releases/emissions to air, land, or water, changes to biodiversity or hydrology, or to the capacity of a community to maintain sustainable practices.

Public administration - impacts to the delivery and maintenance of public services, and the resources that support them, including personnel, financial, and logistical considerations.

Infrastructure

The managed elements of interrelated systems that provide goods and services essential to enabling, sustaining or enhancing the living conditions of human communities. Infrastructure systems consist of built infrastructure, natural infrastructure, and the enabling environment. The guidance provided on Climate Insight is geared towards municipally owned and/or managed public infrastructure. Infrastructure types referred to in Solutions results refer to the infrastructure that the option increases resilience or reduces net emissions for.

LCA (Life Cycle Assessment)

A tool that assesses the environmental impacts of a project associated with all the stages of its life.

Likelihood

In the context of climate change risk assessments, likelihood refers to the chance of a hazard happening. Likelihood may be measured, determined qualitatively or quantitatively, and expressed in general terms or mathematically.

Local Area

Refers to the area immediately surrounding a site, such as a neighbourhood block, and includes the site and any specific asset/infrastructure.

Low Carbon

On the Climate Insight Map, low carbon is an infrastructure type related to the Canadian Energy transition, including industrial biomass power generation, EV charging stations, wind turbines, and solar power facilities.

Low Carbon Resilience

Low Carbon Resilience is a lens used to coordinate and co-evaluate adaptation and mitigation strategies to reduce both emissions and vulnerability. Green Infrastructure and Nature-based Solutions support LCR as they both address hazards (through water management, cooling, erosion control, etc.) while also sequestering carbon through natural processes. Technical LCR solutions would include those that provide protections against one or more climate hazards while also reducing net emissions through energy efficiency, fuel switching, or offsets.

Major Retrofit

Involves a change or replacement of part/all of the infrastructure involving significant redesign, reconfiguration, and/or reengineering.

Minor Repairs

Considered to require no engineering or design changes, and can be done as part of normal operations.

Mitigation

Climate change mitigation refers to any action that limits or prevents greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere, as well as any enhancing activities that remove these gases from the atmosphere (carbon sequestration).

Moderately Complex Upgrades

Refers to additions or upgrades requiring minor design/engineering changes.

Natural Solution

Climate Insight defines a natural solution to be any infrastructure option that uses preserved, restored, or enhanced ecosystem features and materials (eg. water, native species of vegetation, sand and stone, etc.) to deliver beneficial community services and infrastructure outcomes. On Climate Insight, a Natural Solution is a type of intervention that integrates these natural characteristics into existing or new infrastructure projects to increase resilience/reduce emissions, and is used interchangeably with Nature-based Solutions. (Click here for a visual illustration of the infrastructure and solution types).

Nature-Based Solution (NbS)

Actions to protect, manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems, which address societal challenges, effectively and adaptively, providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits. On Climate Insight, a Nature-based Solution is used interchangeably with Natural Solutions to indicate natural intervention types (rather than Grey or Hybrid intervention types) of infrastructure options. (Click here for a visual illustration of the infrastructure and solution types).

Non-Energy Emissions

A mitigation option category that involves any action that reduces non-energy, GHG emissions (organic waste, refrigerants, fugitive emissions, etc.).

Northern Community

Communities in or surrounded by predominantly frozen natural environments, with unique infrastructure considerations such as permafrost, transportation across ice and snow, and/or extreme cold weather systems.

Operational Efficiency

Any option involving improved energy efficiency through operational practices and controls and/or infrastructure-related policy changes.

Option

Infrastructure intervention that will support infrastructure resiliency and/or decrease emissions. Options may be thought of as the solutions that can be applied to infrastructure to address impacts of and on climate change.

Permafrost Thaw

Melting of the previously frozen layer of earth which may consist of gravel, sand, organic matter, and ice.

PIEVC

The Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee (PIEVC) was developed by Engineers Canada, with support from Natural Resources Canada, to assist engineers in factoring climate change impacts into plans for design, operation, and maintenance of public infrastructure. More information is available here https://pievc.ca/. The PIEVC includes a full assessment protocol as well as a High Level Screening Tool (HLSG).

Potable Water Infrastructure

Any infrastructure that supports drinking water treatment and distribution.

Qualitative Tools

Narrative and thematic assessments leveraged from perceptions and lived experience, for instance using anecdotal data, local knowledge and socio-economic factors to inform the identification of climate change impacts, vulnerabilities and risks, and emissions.

Quantitative Tools

An approach requiring numerical scoring or ranking using an established framework and hard data (e.g., historical climate and weather data, utility data, modelling/projections). Typically involves subject-matter experts (from a given sector or geographic location), as participants need to have a thorough and comprehensive understanding of the subject matter so that they can be confident in assigning numerical values.

Remote Community

A community that is more than 1.5 hours from the nearest urban centre.

Residential Instability

On Climate Insight, residential instability is one of the themes or dimensions of the Social Vulnerability Index relating to the tendency of neighbourhood inhabitants to fluctuate over time, taking into consideration both housing and familial characteristics.

Resilience

The capacity or ability to anticipate and cope with shocks and to recover from their impacts. In the context of climate change, it is the capacity of a system to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the impacts of hazardous climatic events while incurring minimal damage to societal wellbeing, the economy, and the environment.

Risk

The probability of harmful consequence or expected loss resulting from the interaction of a hazard with the built environment. Level of risk is determined by the characteristics of a hazard - its frequency/likelihood of occurring, and the potential consequences of it occurring. Consequences are dependent on the vulnerability of infrastructure/assets and people who may be impacted, as well as their level of exposure to the hazard itself.

Risk Assessment

The process in which the risk of a system (infrastructure/asset, community, etc.) to climate hazards is calculated. Involves the assessment of vulnerabilities, exposure and climate change hazards and their likelihoods and consequences.

Rural Community

Low density territory, lying outside of population centres often with high areas of natural, forestry, or agricultural lands.

Situational Vulnerability

On Climate Insight situational vulnerability is one of the themes or dimensions of the Social Vulnerability Index relating to variations in socio-demographic conditions in the areas of housing and education, while taking into account other demographic characteristics.

Social Vulnerability Index

In general, a Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) is an empirical tool that combines variables to measure the relative susceptibility of a specific subset of the population within a defined geographical boundary. A SVI combines the socio-economic variables that either directly or indirectly impact an individual’s or household’s vulnerability using proxy data. The analysis results in numerical scores, which are categorized into 1-5 levels. (Reference: Partners for Action. (2024). Inclusive resilience: A socio-economic vulnerability index(SoVI) to map flood risk for targeted communications and disaster risk reduction. Waterloo, Ontario: University of Waterloo.)

On Climate Insight the Social Vulnerability Index represents the Canadian Index of Multiple Deprivation (CIMD). This index consists of variables such as income, newcomer status, age, home ownership, etc. and is taken from Statistics Canada data.

The CIMD is based on four dimensions of deprivation, which have been included as additional standalone and with climate data in bivariate layers on the map.

These additional dimensional layers are:

• Residential instability
• Economic dependency
• Ethno-cultural composition
• Situational vulnerability

See the specific definitions for each of these terms and the Data and Methodology page for more information.

Solid Waste Infrastructure

Fixed infrastructure and assets used to manage, sort, collect, store and dispose of municipally generated waste. Excludes fleet assets and the physical buildings that house operations.

Examples: garbage cans, landfills, incinerators, recycling or composting facilities

Stormwater Infrastructure

Any asset that supports the transport and management or treatment of runoff water from rain or snow to redirect it to either local waterways, storage and retention, or a wastewater treatment plant.

Subdivision

A residential area and includes the municipal and utility services needed to support the residential housing (eg. roads, parks, sewers, electricity).

Thermal Efficiency

Any option involving reducing energy losses with improved thermal efficiency (includes building envelope, process heat, etc.)

Tightly Scoped Risk Assessment

A tightly scoped risk assessment approach is one where the assessment is carried out with a given thematic or focus area (eg. a specific asset, asset class, service area, or entire system) or one which is focused on a single hazard category. Generally faster to complete than a comprehensive risk assessment as the number of climate parameters and individuals needed to be involved are limited.

Tools and Guides

This category of content includes the following types of guidance:

1. Technical and content support in the form of guidance documents, survey results, literature reviews, software, calculators, GIS programs, reference documents/databases, research papers on climate and infrastructure.
2. Industry and International Standards/Best Practices from professional associations, non-accredited certifications.

Transportation

An infrastructure type/asset class that includes all non-mobile infrastructure enabling the transport of people or goods from one location to another. On Climate Insight, this excludes public transit and fleet vehicles.

Examples: roads, highways, bridges, lights, signals, road construction, bus stops, EV charging stations

Type of Intervention

This refers to the level of engineered material and processes a specific Infrastructure Option may use. Options are sorted into three types of interventions:

• Natural Solutions (see also Nature-based Solutions)
• Grey Solutions
• Hybrid Solutions

Usable Space

The amount of space not already fully dedicated to other uses. This could include open unlandscaped areas on the project site, or could make use of areas that are part of the structure, but could support additional development or equipment.

Vulnerability

The tendency of exposed elements such as human beings, their livelihoods, and assets to suffer adverse effects when impacted by hazard events.

Wastewater Infrastructure

Any asset that supports the transport and treatment of water that has been used in residential, commercial, or industrial processes.

Water Utilities

An infrastructure type/asset class that includes facilities used to treat, transport, process, monitor or test potable water, stormwater, and wastewater.

Examples: Sewage pipes (combined and separate), receiving drains, manholes, pumping stations

Wildfire

Wildfires are unwanted, unplanned, and uncontrolled fires usually initiated after prolonged periods of dry hot conditions, in predominantly natural areas, usually forests or grasslands. Ignition can come from natural events (such as lightening strikes) or human sources (campfires, combustion engines, etc.), but impacts extend beyond the ignition location to the Wildland-Urban Interfaces between forested and built environments, whether directly through fire and heat, or indirectly from embers or smoke events.

Zone

A large area that encompasses the whole or a significant portion of the community including options that apply to the asset, the site, and the local area.