Schulich School of Engineering explores cutting edge technologies to respond to climate-related disasters

In the future, extreme wildfires could be fought with drones, without any risk to human life. (Supplied)

The University of Calgary’s Schulich School of Engineering is expanding a conversation on tools and technologies to prevent, mitigate and respond to natural disasters.

A Schulich Connects panel discussion held Thursday morning explored cutting edge technologies and strategies that engineers are developing to adapt to the growing threat of climate-related incidents such as the 2013 Alberta floods and the more recent Jasper wildfire.

Schuyler Hinman, an assistant professor at the U of C department of mechanical and manufacturing engineering, says it's important to put Alberta firefighters out of harm's way.

This can be by expanding research into the design and performance of drones that could extinguish flames without the risk of human lives.

“So, we’re looking at what this would look like in terms of configuration, Is it big? Is it small? Is it a quadcopter? Is it a fixed wing? And sort of, we're kind of just living in that design space to try and quantify what the performance might be,” he said.

“Not to design one ourselves, but to maybe learn some things that could inform the people who actually fight wildfires, if they ever wanted to procure one, they could maybe look at our research and say, ‘Oh, well, this research has shown that this type of aircraft will be the one that might suit us best.'”

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Meanwhile, experts like Alex (Sandy) Cummings, who formerly worked as a Parks Canada project manager for over three decades note that new materials for infrastructure and fire-safe protocols are at the forefront of conversations with engineers.

“The biggest thing that we're seeing is switching from roofs that are prone to burning, so going away from materials like cedar shade or actual shingle and going to something more fire resistant, such as metal,” Cummings said.

“We're also looking at fire-resistant siding, such as going to the Hardy board from the vinyl siding, and all that sort of stuff because we’re always looking at changes in the industry that are coming up with more fire-resistant materials that we can apply.”

Other up and coming applications to respond to disasters include the use of three-dimensional maps which could be generated through artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to provide life-saving information.

Shabnam Jabari, an associate professor in geomatics engineering at the University of New Brunswick, has been researching how flooding in different regions of Atlantic Canada has helped provide data on flood levels. This helps detect damage on key pieces of infrastructure while working with experts in hydrodynamic and hydrologic modeling.

“We work together to look at how much the water levels can revolve and for us in geomatics, because we have access to data, we can broaden that with additional twin models that we create and see how many buildings get damaged, and how much damage can we actually expect on the buildings,” Jabari said.

“With AI these days, we can actually look at the individual buildings and see where their windows are, where their doors are, and then once we run the water level to those buildings, we can provide a detailed damage map for that infrastructure.”

Jabari adds that post-disaster, her team can compare satellite images or drone images to guide first responders to assist in rescues or clean-up efforts.

The next Schulich Connects event is scheduled for Oct. 24 which will feature a conversation on navigating global water challenges and solutions for water security.