Data plays a very important role in responding to these natural disasters or emergencies. We in Newfoundland and Labrador experienced a number of floods, which were not there historically, and we attribute those to climate change. Our real-time data monitoring network, both for water quantity and quality, is a blessing and a lifesaver because we can alert people in advance that “these are the areas that are potentially going to be flooded” and “these areas should be evacuated”.
We work with our fire and emergency services, so we work as a team in which our role is to analyze that technical data on a real-time basis and then share that information with municipalities and first responders.