Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Each year during the spring, river breakup brings the threat of ice jam floods to many of the communitiesacross Canada which are situated around rivers. Breakup ice jams occur when snowmelt swells the stream, andlifts 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 whenthis happens an ice jam is formed. The streamflow is blocked by this dam of ice, and water levels can rise atrates approaching two to three feet per minute, with virtually no advance warning. As a result, damages fromice 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 threatcan be expected to increase as our communities continue to grow and population density increases. If we are toensure safe and expedient evacuations from areas threatened by ice jam floods, then sufficient advancedwarning must be provided. Quite simply we do not yet have this warning capability for ice jam floods, and thisinadequacy in our flood forecasting systems results in the unnecessary threat of death each time an ice jamoccurs 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 arethreatened 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. Inaddition, to ensure they are of practical value, the resulting flood forecasting system must be useable by localEmergency Operations personnel, requiring no specialized knowledge of river ice dynamics. This researchproject is aimed at developing this capability.