- Research
Researchers from INRS have received funding from the Québec government through a call for projects by Ouranos.
Torrential rains affecting public transit in Montréal, a landslide cutting off traffic in the Saguenay, or forest fires in northern Québec disrupting the services provided by several telecom operators… All these recent events demonstrate the exposure of essential systems to extreme weather phenomena and highlight the importance of developing knowledge aimed at ensuring that Quebecers have resilient and adapted critical systems in the years to come.
Two projects involving researchers from Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) have just received close to $600,000 in funding from the Québec government. Their common goal? Reduce the vulnerability and strengthen the resilience of critical systems to the effects of climate change.
The “Resilience of critical systems to climate change” call for projects coordinated by Ouranos with the support of the members of the Joint Research Unit (UMR) project on civil and public security and defence in the context of climate change, led by INRS, addresses civil and public security issues that are essential to the development of Québec society.
“By joining this call for projects from Ouranos, INRS aims to stimulate collaborations between members of the Joint Research Unit (UMR) project dedicated to civil and public security and defence issues in the context of climate change. We are delighted to have achieved this goal. Thanks to this provincial funding, researchers can now get down to work pending the completion of this promising UMR project in the Haut-Richelieu region. ”
Karine Souffez, Director, Strategic Partnerships and Innovation Support (SepSSI) Services, INRS.
Making Montréal’s public transit system resilient to flooding
In recent years, the City of Montréal’s public transit system has had to contend with extreme weather events such as torrential rains, which can disrupt or even stop service.
Guided by this premise, the project led by Julia Frotey, assistant professor at INRS and co-director of the INRS-UQAR Joint Research Unit in Digital Transformation in Support of Regional Development, aims to improve knowledge of the network’s level of vulnerability and exposure to flood risk and provide the STM and the City of Montréal with a global vision of the problem.
The research team of Paul Célicourt (INRS), Sophie Duchesne (INRS), Jean-Luc Martel (ETS), and Taha B.M.J. Ouarda (INRS), in collaboration with the STM and the City of Montréal, set out to propose and evaluate structural adaptation solutions to strengthen the resilience of metro stations to extreme rainfall events. It will also look at non-structural solutions to help partners coordinate their actions.
“There is now a scientific consensus that precipitation is set to increase in the future, and that extreme rainfall is likely to multiply in the city. Our interdisciplinary research team has set itself the goal of improving the resilience of the public transit network in the face of such rainfall, because the network remains essential to the daily lives of thousands of Montrealers,” says
Professor Julia Frotey, specialist in the territorial impacts of digital and energy transitions.
Team members are looking to support a coordinated approach between the City of Montréal and the public transit network operator and strengthen their collaboration on managing the risk associated with extreme rainfall. The project should also result in the training of highly qualified personnel and the emergence of new technical and fundamental concepts in hydraulics and spatial planning.
The project, relevant and aligned with climate resilience priorities in Québec, combines a rigorous scientific approach with practical benefits for critical transportation infrastructure.
Preparing civil security officials for critical system failures
Critical systems such as electricity, telecommunications, and transport are highly interconnected. If one of them fails, it can cause a chain reaction and disrupt several vital services. Managing this complexity is a challenge for municipal civil security officials.
A project led by Centre de recherche et d’innovation en sécurité civile du Québec (Centre RISC), in collaboration with INRS assistant professor Morgan Mouton, is studying how these systems interact during extreme weather events. Using decision psychology methods, the team is examining the cascading effects of a breakdown in information and communication technology (ICT) systems during such events.
“The physical infrastructure of IT systems is difficult to identify and locate. It’s crucial to integrate this dimension into crisis management. I’m going to look at vulnerabilities linked to the geography of digital infrastructures such as data centres.”
Professor Morgan Mouton, whose work at INRS focuses on urban infrastructure.
The goal is to help municipal officials better manage these situations and make informed decisions. The project explores the factors that influence complex decisions, identifies the needs of municipal officials, links these needs to existing solutions, and provides a simulation to test these solutions.
This project, led by Benoît Béchard (Centre RISC), is the result of a collaboration between Centre RISC, INRS, Polytechnique Montréal, and Québec City’s Bureau de sécurité civile. The project team includes co-investigator Isabelle Turcotte (Centre RISC) and co-investigators Morgan Mouton (INRS) and Benoît Robert (Polytechnique Montréal).
About the call for projects from Ouranos
The call was addressed to the energy, transport, and telecommunications sectors with the objective of supporting research projects aimed at reducing the vulnerability and strengthening the resilience of critical systems to the effects of climate change.
The two selected projects have undergone a scientific peer review process through an independent committee. They will share nearly $600,000 in funding and will get underway in summer 2025.
The call for projects from Ouranos is funded by the Québec government and meets the objectives of the 2030 Plan for a Green Economy.
