Province commits $1.8M to study Nunavik’s landslides
Quebec funding for Kativik Regional Government and Laval University aims to improve risk management, secure communities
An aerial view of a spring 2021 landslide near Kuujjuaraapik, the second-largest recorded in Quebec history. (Photo courtesy of Whapmagoostui First Nation)
The Quebec government is spending $1.85 million to research landslides in Nunavik.
The Ministry of Public Security committed $1.15 million to Laval University to launch a research project studying the phenomenon in the region’s clay soils, the ministry announced May 30.
Work will involve the mapping and characterization of deposits untouched by water but which still present risk of landslide, and compiling an inventory of large landslides that have occurred in Nunavik.
“The results of this project will deepen our understanding of the geological and climatic conditions that control landslide initiation in cold regions such as Nunavik,” Laval University professor Patrick Lajeunesse said in the French-language release.
The study “will play an essential role in strengthening the resilience of northern communities to these processes of land surface change,” he added.
Two landslides were confirmed in October 2022 near a river on the Hudson Coast about 60 kilometres south of Umiujaq. And in April 2021, a mudslide dumped 45 million cubic metres of debris into the Great Whale River, about eight kilometres from Kuujjuaraapik and Whapmagoostui, in what would later be described as the second-largest landslide recorded in Quebec history.
The provincial government also gave $700,000 to Kativik Regional Government to improve its landslide risk management and increase community resilience.
The work involves calculating the risk of landslides across Nunavik, using Inuit knowledge to make a risk management plan, and devising an education plan keeping Inuit culture in mind.
Kativik Regional Government chairperson Hilda Snowball said in the release she’s pleased the Quebec government “recognizes the urgent need to further assist our regional government in strengthening its risk management capacity.”
She said the funding will help all 14 communities “deal with the potentially serious residential and environmental emergencies that come with living in Nunavik.”
The funding commitment is part of Quebec’s Nordic Action Plan 2023-28, which aims to improve knowledge and implement risk mitigation measures for hazards in the North.
I think the land slides are due to the fact that permafrost is melting, we also had one on the river of Little Whale River two years ago, the permafrost is melting in most of Nunavik area, I think the communities will be affected by this phenomenon Gods nature action, the earth has been melting since the end of Noahs world wide flood, and up to today it is still melting, the glaciers are telling us that Natures been taking its course since the receding of Noahs world wide flood, that happened 4,500 years ago.