Although the new maps have yet to be produced, officials expect that nearly 77,000 homes, or two per cent of Quebec's population, could find themselves in a flood zone compared to 22,000 today.Major flooding in the Charlevoix and Lanaudière regions last year led to hundreds of people being evacuated from their homes. Floodwaters washed out roads and several motorhomes were swept away.
"In certain places in Quebec, the flood zone mapping has not been updated in 30 years," Environment Minister Benoit Charette said Tuesday. "We have to update our way of doing things based on the science, and that is what we are proposing today." The categories will take into account the frequency of floods, their intensity depending on the water depth reached as well as the impacts of climate change.New regulations announced Tuesday stipulate that repair and renovation work can generally proceed in flood-prone areas, but rebuilding severely damaged structures in very high-intensity flood zones may be restricted.