The development of a prototype of a Canadian Urban Flow and Dispersion Modeling System

The Environmental Emergency Response Section (EERS) of Environment Canada's Canadian Meteorological Centre (CMC) has several mandated national and international roles to provide atmospheric transport modeling of toxic material in the atmosphere.

A multi-scale modeling system, the Canadian Urban Flow and Dispersion Modeling System (CUDM), has been developed to provide urban flows and dispersion of CBRN agents released in urban environments. Work is ongoing to merge this system into the larger scale operational modelling suite, enabling modelling of CBRN pollutants between urban and regional scales.

This multi-scale modeling system will increase our capability to model and simulate the mean flow, turbulence and concentration fields in urban environments and in the assessment of hypothetical releases or in cases of real-time response to incidents involving the release of hazardous material in a major Canadian city. This will also provide EERS with a key-enabling technology to demonstrate its capability as a primary national 24/7 reach-back and support centre for CBRN pre-event scenario planning, real-time emergency response and post-incident assessment in Canada. This work has been developed over many years through funding from the Canadian Safety and Security Program (CSSP).

The CUDM can help to identify hazard zones more accurately and improve emergency preparedness and management of CBRN incidents in major Canadian cities. The system has been demonstrated during events of national significance as 2010 Winter Olympics/Paralympics Games at Vancouver, and the 2010 G8-G20 Summit at Toronto and will be applied to the upcoming PanAm games in Toronto in July 2015.