AdapT-UMQ Chair in Resilient Municipal Infrastructure

Faced with the growing impacts of climate change, Quebec municipalities must cope with increased pressure on their essential infrastructure, including roads, water systems, and public facilities. By 2055, these disruptions could result in more than $2 billion in additional annual costs. In this context, the RMI Chair aims to support municipalities in planning, financing, and modernizing resilient infrastructure, while promoting social innovation and supporting vulnerable local economies.

Research areas

Axis 1 — Municipal intelligence in infrastructure resilience

Develop decision support tools to prioritize interventions on critical infrastructure, using data, risk modeling tools, decision mapping, and digital twins. The goal: to better plan, sequence, and finance investments according to local vulnerabilities.

Axis 2 — Infrastructure for resilient local economies and social innovation

Explore how infrastructure can support the resilience of key sectors of local economies, such as:

• Tourism, affected by shorter seasons and extreme events;
• The agri-food industry, which requires logistics and energy infrastructure adapted to short supply chains;
• Electrification, through the effective deployment of charging infrastructure;
• Citizen participation, by involving communities in the planning and management of infrastructure projects.

Ongoing case studies

• Development of a decision support tool for resilient municipal infrastructure (with the FRQ-AdapT Chair)
• Support for adapting tourist facilities to climate change
• Municipal electrification and infrastructure projects for local agri-food chains