Sump pumps, flood maps: How to assess climate risks when house shopping
Originally published in Toronto Star, Jan 29, 2026
By Ian Bickis The Canadian Press
TORONTO – When Kathryn Bakos was house hunting a few years ago, her checklist included some things that might not come first in mind for a dream home.
“I did not want a reverse-sloped driveway,” she explained in an interview.
“My husband said, well, what happens if we find our perfect home? I said, it’s not our perfect home if it has a reverse slope.”
Such driveways direct water toward the home, an issue Bakos is well aware of after researching how increasingly common catastrophic floods hurt home values.
The angle of a driveway is just one of many hazards home shoppers need to understand as climate change creates more extreme weather trends, said Bakos, managing director of finance and resilience at University of Waterloo’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation.
Innovative Partnership Approach Catalyzing Climate Resiliency
Originally published in The Globe and Mail, September 17, 2025
When areas in Bedford, Nova Scotia, experienced more than 250 millimetres of rain in just days in July 2023, the resulting devastation caused country-wide alarm. Considered one of the highest impact flash floods in Canadian history, the incident served as a stark reminder how extreme weather events increasingly place communities at risk.
Flooding, the most common and costly disaster in Canada, already incurs nearly $800-million in insured losses annually. What’s more, climate models predict that events that occurred once every two decades in Canada could happen every five years by the end of the century, making projections based on historic data inherently inaccurate…
NOAH Secures Private Investment to Advance Flood Risk Solutions
Toronto, ON – April 16, 2025 – NOAH Intelligence Inc., a leading innovator in advanced flood risk management solutions, today announced the successful closing of a private investment round. The funding will support the company’s mission to transform how communities and organizations predict, mitigate, and manage flood-related risks.
The investment, led by R-LABS, underscores growing recognition of NOAH’s cutting-edge technology and its potential to address the challenges posed by flooding and climate change.