Abstract Manager

Climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of wildfires, creating significant risk and recent impacts to Canadian communities, transportation systems, and economic activities. Major Canadian wildfires—including the 2016 Fort McMurray Wildfire, the 2021 British Columbia Wildfires, and the 2024 Jasper Wildfire Complex—highlight major losses and burdens experienced by property owners as well as the increasing need to protect lives through large-scale evacuations. Concurrently, the interaction between transportation and land use plays a crucial role in building resilient communities by ensuring access to essential services and maintaining livable environments under changing climate conditions. During both daily operation and disruptions, the performance of a transportation system is determined by not only transportation infrastructure, but also travel demand, which is largely shaped by land use patterns and urban form. While research has examined transportation resilience concepts, measurement, and adaptation strategies, little work has focused on the connection of land use and transportation in the resilience context, specifically on how neighbourhoods and communities should be uniquely designed for wildfire risks.

This presentation will address this gap through a summary of a systematic literature review that has identified resilience co-considerations in transportation networks, land use planning, and urban design. We conducted a large-scale, systematic review of three research databases (i.e., Scopus, Web of Science, and Transport Research International Documentation) using a search string method that focused on integrated land use and transportation research in the resilience field. Early results indicate that minimal research or practice has been devoted to the connection of the two topics. Indeed, research tends to be bifurcated into two distinct areas of inquiry: 1) fuel treatments, fuel breaks, and individual home protection for land use; and 2) evacuation strategies for transportation. The overlap of the two fields—especially as it relates to zoning, master planning, neighbourhood design, and sustainability-resilience tradeoffs—is rare. Positively, several recent research exemplars have begun addressing how transportation and land use factors influence community resilience, focusing on wildfire resilient designs of flexible roadway infrastructure, egress pathways, and redundancy. Moreover, we will discuss early-stage research work in Canmore, Alberta, that will: 1) identify and assess strategies, designs, and planning that would ensure safe and resilient transportation in fire-prone communities; and 2) maintain the viability, protection, and value of current built environments in wildfire-prone areas.