Canadian Hazard Information Service

Canadian Hazard Information Service
Name	Canadian Hazard Information Service
Abbreviation	CHIS
Formation	1990s
Type	Federal agency
Headquarters	Ottawa, Ontario
Region served	Canada
Leader title	Director
Parent organization	Environment and Climate Change Canada

Contents

Canadian Hazard Information Service

Overview

CHIS produces hazard inventories, exposure assessments, vulnerability indices, and probabilistic models for perils including coastal storm surge, fluvial flooding, pluvial flooding, coastal erosion, wildfire, landslide, avalanche, earthquake, tsunami, extreme temperature, drought, and ice storms. It distributes geospatial products to users in provincial archives (e.g., British Columbia Archives), municipal GIS departments like City of Toronto Municipal Licensing and Standards, and infrastructure operators such as Hydro-Québec, BC Hydro, Enbridge, Trans Mountain Corporation and Suncor Energy. CHIS outputs inform resilience initiatives at organizations including Canadian Institute for Climate Choices, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, Canadian Standards Association, Royal Society of Canada, and international partners like United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, World Meteorological Organization, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and Arctic Council.

CHIS originated in collaborative programs during the 1990s following major events such as the 1998 North American ice storm and the 1997 Red River flood, aligning with initiatives led by Public Safety Canada and research centres at University of Ottawa and Simon Fraser University. The service evolved through interdepartmental agreements with Environment and Climate Change Canada and funding cycles from federal budgets debated in the House of Commons of Canada and approved by the Parliament of Canada. Its modernization accelerated after the 2013 Alberta floods and the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, with technical exchanges involving National Research Council Canada, Canada Foundation for Innovation, and international missions to United Kingdom Met Office and United States Geological Survey.

CHIS provides national hazard portal services, downloadable hazard layers, exposure matrices, risk dashboards, and standardized metadata compliant with systems used by Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada mapping portals, and the Open Government of Canada data catalogue. Products include probabilistic flood frequency maps, seismic hazard maps aligned with National Building Code of Canada parameters, wildfire likelihood models used by Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, and coastal inundation scenarios informed by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections. Stakeholders access situational awareness tools during events such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake humanitarian coordination exercises, international exercises run with North American Aerospace Defense Command, and domestic exercises coordinated with Canadian Forces.

CHIS integrates remote sensing from satellites operated by Canadian Space Agency programs and international constellations like Landsat, Sentinel-1, RADARSAT, and TerraSAR-X with in situ networks maintained by Meteorological Service of Canada, Hydrometric Service of Canada, Canadian Avalanche Association, and seismic arrays operated by Earthquake Network. It uses hydrological modelling toolchains developed by groups at Université Laval and University of Saskatchewan, and leverages numerical weather prediction outputs from the Canadian Meteorological Centre and global models such as ECMWF and GFS. Methodologies follow standards promulgated by ISO committees, the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior, and peer-reviewed literature from journals like Canadian Geotechnical Journal, Journal of Hydrology, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society and Natural Hazards.

CHIS governance is structured through memoranda with federal institutions including Environment and Climate Change Canada, Public Safety Canada, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada and advisory committees populated by representatives from provincial ministries such as Alberta Emergency Management Agency and academic chairs from Canada Research Chair programs. Funding arises from federal appropriations approved by the Treasury Board of Canada and targeted grants from agencies such as Canadian Institutes of Health Research for health-related risk work, and infrastructure grants from Infrastructure Canada and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Procurement follows policies set by Public Services and Procurement Canada.

CHIS outputs inform land-use planning codes enforced under provincial statutes like Ontario’s Planning Act and Québec’s Act respecting land use planning and development, influence building standards referenced by the National Building Code of Canada, and underpin insurance underwriting by the Insurance Bureau of Canada and catastrophe modelling firms such as AIR Worldwide, RMS, and CoreLogic. Emergency response organizations including Canadian Red Cross, Canadian Forces, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and municipal fire services use CHIS situational products during events like the 2017 British Columbia wildfires and the 2020 Nova Scotia floods. Internationally, CHIS data contributed to Arctic resilience programs coordinated through the Arctic Council and disaster risk reduction reporting to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Critics from academics at University of Toronto, McMaster University, and advocacy groups such as Council of Canadians and David Suzuki Foundation have questioned CHIS on issues including timeliness of updates, transparency of proprietary models co-developed with vendors like RMS and AIR Worldwide, representativeness of Indigenous data and consultation with Assembly of First Nations and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, and adequacy of funding debated in the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. Controversies have arisen regarding data access disputes involving provincial agencies like Alberta Environment and Parks and private utilities such as Hydro One, and debates over alignment with policy instruments like the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change.