Is my BC property protected by a dike?

What the answer means

What a dike is

Under the Dike Maintenance Act a dike is any embankment, wall, fill, pump, gate, floodbox, culvert or ditch built to keep floodwater off land. The Province's map draws the crest of each earth dike and stretch of bank protection, most of it surveyed in 2019 and 2020.

Who looks after it

A diking authority, usually the municipality, regional district, or a diking or improvement district, maintains a dike. On a regulated dike the Province's Inspector of Dikes can order the diking authority, or the owner of land the dike stands on, to repair or change it.

Orphan and private dikes

An orphan dike has no local authority responsible for it, so nobody may be keeping it up. A private dike is built on private land to protect only that land, and the Inspector can't order its repair.

Behind a dike isn't off the floodplain

A dike is built to hold back a design flood, and a bigger one can overtop it or a weak spot can breach, as on the Sumas Prairie in November 2021. Land behind a dike is often still on the floodplain map, and the local government's flood construction level can still apply.

On or beside the lot

Nobody may lower or narrow a dike, put a pipe or structure through it, build on or over it or its right of way, or alter the stream beside it without the Inspector of Dikes' written approval. A dike on a lot can come with a right of way registered on its title for the diking authority's access; a title search shows it.

What it means for a buyer

Ask the diking authority which flood the dike is built for, when it was last inspected and what work is planned, and the local government whether the lot is in the area the dike protects and what flood construction level applies.

Our summary of the Dike Maintenance Act, ss. 1 and 2, read on BC Laws 2026-10-07. The map shows where the Province's survey found each dike's crest, not how high a flood it holds or its condition. A report names the nearest dike within 300 m in the section's headline. Confirm with the diking authority and the local government before you buy or build.

Source: Flood Protection Works: Structural Works, Province of BC (Open Government Licence – British Columbia); Dike Maintenance Act, RSBC 1996, c. 95, ss. 1 and 2 (summarised in our words, read 2026-10-07).

By place

The dikes on the Province's map, about 1,035 km in all, in 119 places, with the bank protection beside them; listed by place and name.

From the Province's Flood Protection Works: Structural Works, read 2026-10-07. Each stretch is placed by us in the place that holds its middle, so a long dike can be listed in two places; 67 stretches on land without a place page here, reserves among them, aren't listed. "Regulated" means under the Dike Maintenance Act; an orphan dike has no local authority responsible for it.