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Assessment of lightning-related damage and disruption in Canada

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Abstract

This article assesses the extent and costs of lightning-related damage and disruption in Canada. Lightning routinely damages property and disrupts economic and social activities. Affected sectors include health; property and casualty insurance; forestry; electricity generation, transmission, and distribution; agriculture; telecommunications; transportation; and tourism and recreation—the first four sectors are the most important in terms of contributing to overall impacts and costs. Secondary data and extrapolations from U.S. studies were used to develop cost estimates for the health, property, forestry, and electricity sectors. Aggregated, annual lightning-related damage and disruption costs in Canada range from CA$600 million to CA$1 billion. Forestry and electricity damages accounted for over 85% of the total. The estimates are both preliminary and conservative. In terms of continued research, additional or more refined studies using Canadian empirical data are warranted for the insurance and electricity sectors. Detailed insurance claim or outage data would permit analysis at the storm level and potentially discern finer-scaled risk patterns. Further effort is also required to evaluate risk or damage prevention measures, particularly those that relate to expanded or enriched use of the Canadian Lightning Detection Network data by both public and private sector clients. Both the degree of adoption and efficacy or cost-effectiveness should be investigated.

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Notes

  1. http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/lightning/index_e.html.

  2. EM-DAT http://www.em-dat.net/.

  3. Canadian Disaster Database http://www.ps-sp.gc.ca/res/em/cdd/index-en.asp.

  4. Spatial Hazards Events and Losses Database http://www.cas.sc.edu/geog/hrl/SHELDUS.html.

  5. VSLs should not be confused with the value of a specific individual person (i.e., priceless).

  6. Hirth et al. (2000) and Viscusi and Aldy (2003) discuss and provide a range of VSL estimates.

  7. Based on data for 31 Canadian CEA-member utilities (i.e., figure is likely greater).

  8. Some aggregate data are available from the Canadian Electricity Association but costs were deemed too high for this study.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Ron Holle Vaisala Inc. and Bob Kochtubajda Environment Canada for reviewing elements of this research. Constructive comments from the anonymous reviewers are also greatly appreciated.

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  1. Adaptation and Impacts Research Division, Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, Environment Canada, c/o Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada

    Brian Mills, Dan Unrau & Laurel Pentelow

  2. Environment Canada, Canadian Lightning Detection Network, Richmond, BC, Canada

    Kelsey Spring

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  1. Brian Mills
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Correspondence to Brian Mills.

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Mills, B., Unrau, D., Pentelow, L. et al. Assessment of lightning-related damage and disruption in Canada. Nat Hazards 52, 481–499 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-009-9391-2

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