Transport committee  In some cases, you have to let nature recover, in particular by using vegetation. As Mr. Bernier said earlier, that would help reduce wave friction on certain types of infrastructure. It would also enable the capture of sediments, that is mud or sand, along the shoreline. That w

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, I have to say that we aren't infrastructure experts or engineers. We can observe the impacts of climate change or anthropic phenomena on infrastructure, but we can't determine what the best solution would be. However, going back to the idea that sediments must be allo

Transport committee  First, you have to look at the present infrastructure situation. If the infrastructure is obsolete, that may already be part of the answer. Perhaps we should examine the situation and improve it to make the shorelines more resilient. On the other hand, we're seeing receding natu

Transport committee  Unlike what other teams conducting research in the estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence have documented, what I'm documenting are other processes and causes that are particular to this section of the river. The impact of climate change on the St. Lawrence River will especially be se

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jean-François, do you have the numbers with you?

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, I'll begin, and Mr. Bernier can supplement what I say, should there be any further information to add. Yes, we're observing those kinds of changes. Earlier Ms. Lagarde mentioned an earth-water continuum, but there also has to be a continuum along the shorelines. There

Transport committee  Jean-François, you can start. You have better knowledge on this than I do.

Transport committee  Of course. There is one point I would like to address. We know about erosion, and we recognize the impact of wave action, but those effects are nevertheless hard to assess based on the data we currently have. The effects on protective infrastructure, which we've been discussi

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, I'll let Jean-François Bernier say a few words about that.

Transport committee  We're seeing human and anthropic rather than natural phenomena. From a geographic point of view, we're seeing more erosion on the natural shorelines than on the anthropized shorelines where infrastructure has been built, for example, on Île Marie, near Verchères. There's a lot m

Transport committee  Yes, Mr. Chair. Let me see where I was. We're seeing the impacts of shipping on the natural shorelines along the seaway, which are eroded more than the shorelines not along the seaway.Those impacts are quite hard to assess where infrastructure has been built. There isn't a lot o

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Bernier. Thank you, Mr. Chair. In 2017, we began studying the St. Lawrence shoreline system, more specifically the fluvial section from Cornwall to Quebec City. This is a project we're conducting with Quebec's Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climat