Toward a national database on flooding events caused by river ice

• Main Authors: Barrette, Paul D., Khan, A. Ali
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: National Research Council of Canada. Ocean, Coastal and River Engineering 2024
• Subjects: flooding; river ice; frazil ice; climate; Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.31630.98880; https://nrc-publications.canada.ca/eng/view/ft/?id=3885da48-c53e-463f-87cf-b8edd015a923; https://nrc-publications.canada.ca/eng/view/object/?id=3885da48-c53e-463f-87cf-b8edd015a923; https://nrc-publications.canada.ca/fra/voir/objet/?id=3885da48-c53e-463f-87cf-b8edd015a923

Flooding along river shorelines often results from ice-related phenomena, such as ice jams. Severe ice jams and associated floods can have major socioeconomic impacts, not only on people’s safety and property but also on the security of infrastructure, transportation, inland navigation, and energy generation. The significance of ice jams to flooding at the national level and beyond has not been adequately documented, and not enough is known about whether/how their frequency is responding to the changing climate. To address these requirements, there is a need for a database of flooding events induced by river ice and ice jam floods (IJF) in Canada, including relevant information, such as year and date, extent of floods, and damage costs. This report is to assess how to best approach the makeup of such a database. It begins with an overview of river ice and the factors leading to the formation of ice jams, defined as a stationary accumulation of fragmented ice or frazil that restricts flow. The large thickness and extreme roughness of the ice under- surface can cause very high water levels and overland flooding, even with moderate river discharges. A review was conducted as part of this study on existing methods to model river ice and anticipate the formation of ice jams. These models are of two types: those that capture the physics of the processes governing river ice development, and those that are data-driven i.e., they rely on statistical data. This review allows for an appreciation of the data that could be incorporated into a database. A review was also conducted on pre-existing databases – eleven such databases are described, each addressing various aspects of river ice from a different perspective: They are: the Canadian River Ice Database (CRID), the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) database, the Historique d'embâcles répertoriés from the Government of Quebec’s Ministère de la Sécurité Publique (MSP), the Canadian Ice Database (CID), the Historical Flood Events database from ...