Mike Nemeth, of WaterSMART Solutions Ltd, discusses the Bow Basin Flood Mitigation and Watershed Assessment Project.
The goal of the project is to work collaboratively with Bow River Basin water management experts to assess potential flood mitigation options. This includes operational, natural and infrastructure opportunities, with an interest in using existing knowledge, tools, and data. It is also important to identify intended and unintended consequences of all potential flood mitigation options from a basin wide perspective, and make recommendations to the Flood Recovery Task Force.
Preliminary flood data for 2005 and 2013 was broken down into hourly blocks, and a flood inundation visualization tool was used to help understand what the next flood could look like, and what damage could occur as a result. Various flood mitigation approaches were determined, and broken down into seven main categories, which were then categorized as short, medium or long term options. Trade-offs were considered for each, including environmental impact, risk level, flow volume, flow speed and the overall cost of the flood mitigation work.
Emerging themes made apparent during this process, include: maximizing natural resiliency is a crucial aspect of water management, and wetland protection, land management and restoration of the natural river function must be a part of the solution, but it won't be the whole solution. The work is ongoing.
This presentation was a part of the Canadian Water Resources Association (CWRA) Alberta Branch Conference in Calgary, Alberta on March 25, 2014.
