Up to $15 Million is available per project for local governments in B.C. to enhance their capacity to withstand and adapt to natural and climate-driven hazards

The Disaster Resilience and Innovation Funding program (DRIF) program provides funding to First Nations and local governments in B.C. to enhance their capacity to withstand and adapt to natural and climate-driven hazards through:

• Activities that bolster community resilience by providing data, building partnerships, and supporting long-term disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation planning
• Structural and non-structural disaster risk reduction projects

Eligible hazards include:​

Types of Support Available

This funding is for new projects/phases of projects only. Examples include:

Activities that support community resilience by providing data, building partnerships, and supporting long-term disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation planning, such as:

• Risk mapping
• Flood-plain mapping
• A disaster risk reduction/climate adaptation plan or a multi-hazard/climate risk resilience plan
• Assessment of the community’s adaptive capacity
• Preliminary planning and design activities related to the development of proposed structural projects
• Benefit-cost analyses to assess the future risk reduction options under consideration and comparing the potential benefits to its costs, and
• Other innovative projects that improve knowledge of risks and disaster risk reduction solutions

Structural:

• Construction, replacement or upgrading of infrastructure (for example, dikes, dams, floodwalls, retention ponds, pump stations)
• Installation of structural flood protection works, or upgrades/retrofits to modernize existing structural flood protection works
• Slope stabilization projects relating to debris flow risk reduction
• New or modified public cooling infrastructure
• Movement or armoring of critical infrastructure, and
• Daylighting or opening buried waterways and restoring to more natural conditions

Natural infrastructure:

• Wetland restoration and/or rain gardens, bioswales and infiltration bulges
• Urban forests
• Living dikes
• Hybrid infrastructure projects including green roofs and walls, naturalized storm-water ponds; 
• Other projects that clearly demonstrate risk reduction potential and/or transferable learnings to other communities in B.C.

Non-structural:

• • Risk mapping
  • Development of bylaws
  • Land use planning
  • Other non-structural solution

Funding Details

The DRIF Program will pay 100% of eligible costs for all applicants up to the approved project maximum. Each First Nation or local government may be a lead or partnering proponent on no more than three submitted EOIs in each Stream to the following limits:

• Stream 1 – Foundational and Non-Structural Projects - $400,000 per partner proponent per EOI 
• Stream 2 – Structural Projects - $5 million per partner proponent per EOI up to a maximum of $15 million per EOI

Deadline to apply

EOIs are accepted on an ongoing basis. Selections are made annually, with funding decisions determined for that year. The cutoff date for 2024 is September 15th, 2024.

Eligible EOIs from previous years may be selected. Where necessary, program staff may contact communities for updated information related to their submission.