Elk River Flood Solutions Strategy

Flooding causes significant impacts to economic activities, disrupts and displaces populations and creates substantial risk to human safety. Recovery efforts from major flood events can be lengthy and have huge economic impacts both in loss of revenue and cost of repair and restoration. Changes in physical characteristics, economic practices and/or human actions can impact the hydrology of a watershed. The Elk River has experience extreme flooding in 1995, 2005 and 2013. The proposed Elk River Alliance (ERA) Flood Solutions Strategy Study will (i) prepare a literature review of flood mitigation and adaptation programs and policies applicable in the Elk Valley; (ii) model historical runoff and a range of future runoff scenarios in the watershed based on a series of landuse and climate change scenarios; and (iii) provide advice and direction on a range of strategies, policies and adaptation plans to increase Elk Valley resiliency and reduce vulnerability to flooding.

Faculty Supervisor:

James Byrne

Student:

Celeste Barnes

Partner:

Elk River Alliance

Discipline:

Geography / Geology / Earth science

Sector:

Environmental industry

University:

University of Lethbridge