New map shows the future of sea-level rise in Quebec

An artistic and futuristic map of Quebec has been making waves.

The engaging map demonstrates how rising sea levels could affect where Quebecers will live as climate change effects have proven to be a top concern for many Canadians.

Jeffrey Linn, the artist behind the map, told Daily Hive Urbanized about its meaning and inspiration.

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The piece is an original work inspired by both “Ursula K. LeGuin’s vision of a future California in her book, Always Coming Home, and A map of San Francisco made by Burrito Justice,” said Linn via email. He’s originally from San Francisco but lives in Seattle now and has created many similar maps of the eastern and western coasts of Canada.

All his sea-level rise maps show what it would look like when all the ice sheets in the world have melted 1,000 years in the future.

“These maps can highlight a lot of the landforms we take for granted in the places we live,” he said.

Courtesy of Jeffrey Linn

The map of Quebec shows a completely submerged Montreal metropolitan area, where the island can only be visible by what Linn coined the “Ile du Mont-Royal,”

“Most of Canada’s large cities are inland far enough that sea-level rise won’t directly affect them,” says Linn. “The furthest the water rises on the St. Lawrence River is just downstream from Lake Ontario, so Toronto escapes in these models. As you can see from the map, Montreal doesn’t fare well against rising seas…The St Lawrence River is practically at sea level here.”

Next, Linn is working on a new retro-future series that will use antique maps as a base and then showing sea-level rise on top. “These show places simultaneously in the past and the far future,” he said.

He posted his first sea-level rise map on the University of Washington’s website in 2014 and his maps have evolved significantly since.

You can follow his work on Conspiracy of Cartographers and look out for his next project.

With files from Daily Hive’s Sarah Anderson