How will Lake Huron's shoreline look in 100 years? Here's the map
CBC
Shoreline change is a problem plaguing many communities on the Great Lakes, as locals watch sections of it slip into the water.
Now, the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority in southwestern Ontario has created urgently needed maps showing the huge impact of these shifts in temperatures and weather — large swaths of Lake Huron's shoreline could be under water in 100 years, including cottages, waterfronts and a marina.
"It's really, to me, the most jarring thing to see," said Patrick Huber-Kidby about land that's already gone.
Huber-Kidby is supervisor of planning and regulations with the conservation authority, located along the southeastern edge of Lake Huron north of London.
The maps are for municipalities and the county to have better information for future planning, and they're also sharing them with the public
Huber-Kidby said homeowners, cottagers and others living on the lake have "seen how much land has disappeared: 10, 20 metres in some areas. It's an area of land as deep as some people's subdivision lots that's gone now, that's in the lake."
See the map here.
To build the map, the authority spent three years consulting with geoscientists and engineers, gathering detailed elevation information and wave modelling.
Reaction from people on the shoreline is mixed, said Huber-Kidby.
Some landowners and cottagers are looking for ways to slow the erosion, asking, "What can I plant, how can I build, what can I do to not have this be an issue for me in the future?"
Others are "quite passive," he said, recognizing it's a dynamic shoreline that's moving inland.
"They just say, 'Well, it looks like based on the mapping, I've got another 20 years, 30 years, maybe another 50 years with my cottage. That's it.
"The best thing, really, is to move outside the hazard," he said. "In an ideal scenario, there's room for those cottages to simply move back. As the land disappears into the lake, there is room to literally pick the cottage up and move it back, outside that hazard."
Researchers are trying to capture the dollar value of what's at risk. They're gathering property values for lands, buildings and infrastructure to get a picture of the anticipated tens of millions of dollars inside the erosion hazard line.