UrbanLogiq maps disaster risk for every community in B.C. as regulatory requirement comes into effect

Under the Emergency and Disaster Management Act effective January 1, 2027, local authorities are required to prepare and maintain risk assessments.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA, October 22, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In 71 days, B.C. law will require every municipality and regional district to assess its disaster risk. Many don’t have the means to do it.

Lytton showed what happens when small communities are given jobs they can't handle. In November, UrbanLogiq will release access to give municipalities and regional districts a way to meet this requirement.

As of January 1st, 2027 under the Emergency and Disaster Management Act, B.C.’s 161 municipalities and 27 regional districts must produce a hazard, risk and vulnerability assessment (HRVA). The goal, in theory, makes sense. Communities that know their risks before a disaster are better placed to survive one. The problem is the actual execution of that goal because an HRVA has never been simple or cheap. It has meant hiring consultants, paying anywhere from $10,000 to more than $1 million, pulling data from across government and months of work before anything reaches council. And by the time it does, that report is likely outdated. For a city with a planning department, that's a project. For a village with three staff, it's out of reach.

Lytton showed the problem

Five years after a wildfire destroyed 90 per cent of Lytton, only about 75 people live in the village.
In March, B.C.'s Auditor General found the village had been expected to lead its own recovery without the staff or the money to do it. The report's word for what happened to Lytton's small team was "overwhelmed."

The gap is on the record

- The Union of B.C. Municipalities says the main outstanding issue for local governments is the need for a long-term funding and capacity-building framework.
- In May, when the province announced the regulations, it said it was still developing guidance to help local governments prepare their risk assessments.
- Earlier this year, provincial FireSmart funding for community wildfire prevention ran dry.

"Making something mandatory doesn't make it possible, especially for communities with fewer resources," said Michael Lee, Chief Strategy Officer at UrbanLogiq and former MLA for Vancouver-Langara. "From my years in the B.C. legislature I've seen good policy stall because the people responsible for delivering it didn't have the tools. That's the gap we set out to close."

What changes this November

UrbanLogiq, a Vancouver-based tech company, is making its platform available to every local government in B.C.
Instead of communities starting from a blank page, UrbanLogiq has already run its model across the whole province. Any municipality or regional district will be able to see its hazards, the people and infrastructure most exposed and use that as the foundation of a hazard, risk and vulnerability assessment.

"Until now, understanding your community's risk took months of work, big budgets and specialized teams. That's no longer true," said Mark Masongsong, CEO and co-founder of UrbanLogiq. "We use AI responsibly to do the heavy lifting once, for every community, so a village of 300 people has the same picture of its risk as a city of a million. Every community in B.C. deserves to know where it's at risk. Big or small, urban or rural.”

Who can use it, and when

- Available to B.C. municipalities and regional districts starting in November.
- Built for all of Canada. Access opens in B.C. with the rest of Canada to follow.
- Sign up at www.hrva.ca to reserve access.

Luisa Alvarez
UrbanLogiq
+1 604-787-0207

UrbanLogiq maps disaster risk for every community in B.C.