Canadian officials are weighing plans for a massive dike construction project—estimated at $150 million to about $240 million—to protect the slender neck of land that connects Nova Scotia and New Brunswick from catastrophic flooding as sea levels rise in the Bay of Fundy and Northumberland Strait. Public works and transportation ministers in the two provinces are now eyeing options to protect the land link over which $28 billion in goods and other trade crosses each year.
The 14-mile-wide Chignecto Isthmus is particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts since it is “only slightly above sea level,” says an engineering study released by provincial authorities on March 22.