Ricardo Ranch
Flood Fringe Study

Client The City of Calgary
Location Calgary | Alberta | Canada

The Ricardo Ranch Flood Fringe Study was commissioned by The City of Calgary and completed by O2 Planning + Design with Klohn Crippen Berger in 2018-19. The intent of the study was to evaluate a series of land-use scenarios for the Flood Fringe area of a Ricardo Ranch, an upcoming development north of the Bow River in southeast Calgary. The work is also meant to contribute to the City’s growing understanding of the implications of Flood Fringe development, joining several other studies and mitigation projects that have occurred since the 2013 floods. 

The study team was given two key tasks: 1. develop a range of land-use scenarios, and 2. assess these scenarios using a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework that used economic, social, and environmental indicators. 

With the support and input of a City-convened stakeholder Working Group, the study team developed six land-use scenarios that were broad, distinct, and viable as potential development futures for the site. In parallel, the same group developed indicators in the three TBL categories, each of which was assigned a desired performance. 

The study team was also asked to include consideration for long-term impacts like climate change in their modelling and analysis. This took the form of three resilience stress-tests that held the land-use scenarios against more demanding “lower-predictability, higher-consequence” futures for the site. 

Of these, the highest scoring scenario (Natural-Residential Hybrid) was comprised of privately-developed residential space set-back from the river by a corridor of light-use public park. 

In the environmental domain, The Natural-Residential Hybrid scenario gained points by providing a strip of new high-quality natural habitat along the Bow River corridor that did not invite high-intensity public use. In the social domain, it gained points by creating an attractive natural face for the development, and by providing access to beautiful open space amenities for local and regional residents. In the economic domain, it gained points by reducing public costs and by capturing much of the potential land value within and around the study area.