The Canadian government has announced $431,600 in avalanche prevention funding for the Université de Sherbrooke.
The funding, from Public Safety Canada’s Search and Rescue New Initiatives Fund (SARNIF), will support research aimed at improving Environment and Climate Change Canada’s (ECCC) Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA) system’s snowfall estimations in mountain regions. These estimates support many groups, including avalanche hazard safety stakeholders, search and rescue organizations, and public avalanche warning services.
The project team will work with ECCC, Parks Canada, Avalanche Canada, Simon Fraser University, the Canadian avalanche community, and provincial governments, to upgrade CaPA by adjusting its algorithm and adding additional snowfall information to better support avalanche hazard assessments.
Avalanches can be triggered by natural events or human activity, and thousands occur annually in Canada across most regions. The enhanced tracking of precipitation in mountain areas, supported by this funding, will help to prevent injuries and deaths by improving monitoring of snow cover stability in mountainous areas.
Read more at Public Safety Canada
