Squamish-Lillooet Regional District and partners receive grant to enhance monitoring of Q̓welq̓welústen / Mount Meager

Pemberton, BC - The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) has been approved for funding from the Union of BC Municipalities' Community Emergency Preparedness Fund's (CEPF) 2024 Disaster Risk Reduction-Climate Adaptation stream to install critical monitoring equipment on Q̓welq̓welústen / Mount Meager, a dormant volcano and geologically active area prone to landslides, including the largest recorded in Canada in 2010. This grant will enable the SLRD and its partners to establish a broad monitoring and alerting system to enhance community resilience, mitigate disaster risk, and improve planning through baseline data on seismic and climatological activity.

Led by the SLRD and with support from Líl̓wat Nation, the Village of Pemberton, Pemberton Valley Dyking District (PVDD), Innergex and Simon Fraser University (SFU), the project will involve installing advanced technology such as seismometers, infrasound acoustic sensors, and day/night cameras across Q̓welq̓welústen / Mount Meager. The integrated monitoring network will track seismic activity, slope instability and weather conditions, providing critical information that will support development of real-time data analysis and eventual early warning capabilities for communities downstream.

"This project moves us towards the creation of an early warning system and helps fulfill our goals of reducing disaster risk and advancing climate adaptation through collaboration and data-driven decision-making," said SLRD CAO, Heather Paul. "The volatility of Q̓welq̓welústen / Mount Meager, combined with limited monitoring outside of academic research, presents a clear need for this initiative to support community safety and resilience, protect Provincial infrastructure, and guide future planning and emergency management."

Once the systems are commissioned and the data is vetted, a link to the PVDD and SFU systems will be established using Innergex's existing infrastructure for internet and power to facilitate real-time data transfer, helping local emergency managers make informed, timely decisions. The data will support long-term risk reduction strategies, enhance infrastructure planning, and contribute to regional resilience against landslides, floods, and volcanic events.

"This monitoring system will significantly improve our ability to detect landslide events and manage risks in the Pemberton Valley," said Glyn Williams-Jones, a Professor at SFU's Department of Earth Sciences and Co-Director of the Centre for Natural Hazards Research. "Q̓welq̓welústen / Mount Meager's slopes have become increasingly unstable, partly due to climate change, underscoring the importance of this enhanced monitoring."

This data will also be hosted in the Canadian Natural Hazards Knowledge Portal, a "one-stop shop" for natural hazards information that SFU is currently developing as a comprehensive resource to support public, corporate, and government preparedness and response.

The challenging terrain around Q̓welq̓welústen / Mount Meager will require careful planning and coordination, but with the CEPF funding, the collective expertise of project partners is expected to yield significant progress toward safety and resilience in Electoral Area C and Pemberton as they complete their objectives to eventually establish an early warning system to alert regional emergency staff of a landslide or other events on Q̓welq̓welústen / Mount Meager's unstable slopes.

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