Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Each year during the spring, river breakup brings the threat of ice jam floods to many of the communities across Canada which are situated around rivers. Breakup ice jams occur when snowmelt swells the stream, and lifts and breaks the ice cover suddenly. The ice pieces may initially be carried along with the snowmelt flow, but often become congested - perhaps at a bridge, at a tight bend in the river, or in amongst islands - and when this happens an ice jam is formed. The streamflow is blocked by this dam of ice, and water levels can rise at rates approaching two to three feet per minute, with virtually no advance warning. As a result, damages from ice jam floods are usually extreme - averaging about $60M per year in Canada alone (in 1995 dollars). The speed and scale of this fast rising water presents a very real threat to human safety as well, and this threat can be expected to increase as our communities continue to grow and population density increases. If we are to ensure safe and expedient evacuations from areas threatened by ice jam floods, then sufficient advanced warning must be provided. Quite simply we do not yet have this warning capability for ice jam floods, and this inadequacy in our flood forecasting systems results in the unnecessary threat of death each time an ice jam occurs and untold stress to victims of ice jam floods. To ensure the safety and security of people and property in the hundreds of communities across Canada that are threatened by ice jams each spring, practical and reliable river ice jam flood forecasting tools are needed. These must provide advance warning of the expected severity, timing, and magnitude of ice jam floods. In addition, to ensure they are of practical value, the resulting flood forecasting system must be useable by local Emergency Operations personnel, requiring no specialized knowledge of river ice dynamics. This research project is aimed at developing this capability.