BRBC March 12th Quarterly Forum Summary: Part 1
The Bow River Basin Council Quarterly Meeting and Networking Forum was held on March 12th at the TransAlta Auditorium. This sold out event brought together participants and speakers from throughout the southern Alberta water community. This first blog post covers the flood specific updates from the March 12th meeting. The rest of the activities will be posted next week.
High River Mitigation Update
Doug Holmes spoke on behalf of the Town of High River. He opened by saying in High River, as elsewhere, development has occurred close to water which has created conflicts. He explained that modeling has been completed to study how water came into the town, where it stayed and how it left. Currently, properties in the neighbourhoods of Wallaceville and Beachwood have been bought out, 108 properties have been removed and a temporary dike has been constructed in the south. To see the placement of mitigation projects in visit the High River Flood Mitigation Projects webpage.
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Earth Hour 2014
Saturday March 29th is Earth Hour, a worldwide event organized by World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The event began in one city and six years later Earth Hour events span 7,000 cities, touches 7 continents and includes hundreds of millions of participants. During Earth Hour individuals, communities, households and businesses are encouraged to turn off their non-essential lights between 8:30 and 9:30pm in your local time zone. This simple act is intended to “encourage an interconnected global community to share the opportunities and challenges of creating a sustainable world” (to read more about Earth Hour visit the WWF website). Congratulations to Edmonton for being named the Earth Hour Capital of Canada by the WWF!
Canadian Water Week: Innovative Stormwater Management in British Columbia
As Canadian Water Week winds down we would like to share a series of videos on innovative stormwater management in British Columbia produced by the Master of Land and Water Systems (MLWS) program.
The following introduction is by Dr. Hans Schreier.
The 2013 Great Alberta Flood: Progress Report on Actions to Mitigate, Manage and Control Flooding
In August 2013, Alberta WaterSMART released the collaborative White Paper, The 2013 Great Alberta Flood: Actions to Mitigate, Manage and Control Future Floods. A broad group of practitioners from across Alberta, Canada and the world participated in developing this paper. The paper was created to provide proactive recommendations for flood management in Alberta.
During the creation of the paper, two draft versions were posted on the Alberta WaterPortal with the intent of collecting public feedback. The response was excellent, leading to the creation of two separate feedback documents, which are available here.
Since the release of the original White Paper, much has been accomplished by different levels of government, various provincial organizations, businesses and individuals. To reflect these efforts, Alberta WaterSMART has revisited the recommendations outlined in the White Paper and created The 2013 Great Alberta Flood: Progress Report on Actions to Mitigate, Manage and Control Flooding to highlight actions and activities undertaken to date, and to outline planned next steps.
Rewilding Our Rivers Discussion Series: A Recipe for Greater Resiliency by Lauren Eden
Over the past several weeks we have been on a learning journey teaching us how ecologically healthy watersheds mitigate for flood flow volumes. Specifically we have learned that:
- healthy soils rich in organic matter hold and store more water than depleted soil systems;
- established wetlands act as sponges across the landscape absorbing surface water runoff, subsequently replenishing our aquifers while slowly releasing runoff into our streams and rivers;
- dense riparian edges provide buffer zones that slow down high flow volumes, and at the same time, filter surface and subsurface runoff; and
- undeveloped vegetated floodplains provide the river room to meander and attenuate flood flow volumes via established roots structures.
This has all highlighted the beneficial flood mitigation functions these ecologies offer us and led us to this final blog in the series.
We have touched on the multifunctional role these ecologies play in providing us with many other important ecosystem goods and services such as drought mitigation, improved water quality and biodiversity, erosion control, climate regulation, important habitats for aquatic and terrestrial species, and recreational spaces for humans. This is a reminder that investing in the ecological resiliency of our watersheds for flood mitigation creates many other positive feedback loops.
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Timelapse of a Meandering River
Alberta is home to many meandering rivers. This is seen in the way they weave back and forth across the landscape. These meandering rivers continue to move across the land as their edges erode, and during floods and high streamflow when the alluvial fan is filled with sediment forcing the water to find a new path.
Last week Commander Chris Hadfield tweeted a link to a 28 year timelapse of a meandering river in Peru. It can be seen below.
Alberta’s rivers are mostly too small to see active meandering on the timelapse however you can see some meandering in the Elbow River above the Glenmore Reservoir. Let us know if you find a better example.
Flood Forecasting Workshop – Day 1 Summary
On February 19th and 20th Alberta Innovates – Energy and Environment Solutions put on a flood mitigation workshop that focused on flood forecasting. The WaterPortal was lucky enough to be invited to live tweet the event. Below is a summary of the first day of the workshop. In the coming weeks a more formal summary of the entire workshop will be released along with the presentations.
Wildlife and the Watershed – Happy World Wildlife Day
Today is the first ever UN sanctioned World Wildlife Day and given the importance of wildlife to the watershed we’re happy to celebrate.
In the United States in the 1930s all the wolves in Yellowstone National Park were extinguished. Over time the area lost a great number of aspen trees, the rivers saw major erosion, and other animals began to disappear. The lack of predators led to a great imbalance that impacted the water itself.
Check out the video below to learn more about the impact of predators on the watershed.
If you only have four minutes to spare the Oldman Watershed Council shared an excellent and similar, but shorter video on their facebook page.
Rewilding Our Rivers: The Floodplain – The River’s Room to Breathe by Lauren Eden
Welcome back to the Rewilding Our Rivers Discussion Series. Today we will look at the role of the floodplain and the importance of designing systems that support the meandering wishes of our rivers.
A floodplain is the flat area of land along a river or stream that is subject to flooding. The width of the floodplain is dependent on the meandering amplitude of the river. It is essentially the breathing room for a river or a stream to meander, overflow, re-route and change course. Rivers will flow where they want and the floodplain is there to provide space for the river to move.
The ecosystem of the floodplain consists of native grasses, woodlands, wetlands and riparian zones. The establishment of rooted vegetation helps to absorb the force as well as the volume of rising floodwaters. The vegetation also serves to stabilize bank erosion, filter pollutants and provide habitat for animals and recreational spaces for humans. Development of impervious surfaces on the floodplain such as buildings, roads and parking lots hinder the ability of the floodplain to absorb floodwaters and at the same time speeds up runoff into streams leading to increased downstream flooding.
Happy Valentine’s Day
If you’ve been searching for the perfect Alberta water themed Valentine’s Day card look no further!
Happy Valentine’s Day from the Alberta WaterPortal team.