Surges from ice jam releases: a case study

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Beltaos ◽  
B. G. Krishnappan
Keyword(s):  
Water Flow ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Ice Jams ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Ice Jam ◽  
Ice Breakup ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Maximum Water ◽  
Ice Water

Accounts by witnesses of spring ice breakup in rivers often mention violent ice runs with extreme water speeds and rapidly rising water levels. Such events are believed to follow the release of major ice jams. To gain preliminary understanding of this problem, an attempt is made to reconstruct a partially documented ice jam release reported recently by others. The equations of the ice–water flow that occurs after the release of an ice jam are formulated. It is shown that the problem may be approximately treated as a one-dimensional, unsteady, water-only flow of total depth identical to that of the ice–water flow, and average velocity. The retarding effect of the frequently encountered intact ice cover below the jam is considered implicitly, that is, by adjusting the friction factor so as to make the predicted and observed downstream stages equal. The effects of jam length are considered next by assuming longer jams of the same maximum water depth. The duration of the surging velocities increases with jam length and so does the peak stage. Less than 2 h after the jam release the surge was arrested and a new jam formed, causing further stage increases. Present capabilities of modelling the reformation process are discussed and the major unknowns identified.

Ice jam mitigation

1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 675-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold S. Belore ◽  
Brian C. Burrell ◽  
Spyros Beltaos
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Carrying Capacity ◽  
Flood Control ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
River Ice ◽  
Ice Jams ◽  
Ice Jam ◽  
Ice Breakup

In Canada, flooding due to the rise in water levels upstream of an ice jam, or the temporary exceedance of the flow and ice-carrying capacity of a channel upon release of an ice jam, has resulted in the loss of human life and extensive economic losses. Ice jam mitigation is a component of river ice management which includes all activities carried out to prevent or remove ice jams, or to reduce the damages that may result from an ice jam event. This paper presents a brief overview of measures to mitigate the damaging effects of ice jams and contains a discussion on their application to Canadian rivers. Key words: controlled ice breakup, flood control, ice jams, ice management, river ice.

scholarly journals Convolutional Neural Network and Long Short-Term Memory Models for Ice-Jam Prediction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatemehalsadat Madaeni ◽  
Karem Chokmani ◽  
Rachid Lhissou ◽  
Saeid Homayuni ◽  
Yves Gauthier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Weather Forecasting ◽  
Multivariate Time Series ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Time Series Classification ◽  
Ice Jams ◽  
Ice Jam ◽  
Learning Techniques ◽  
Long Short Term Memory

Abstract. In cold regions, ice-jam events result in severe flooding due to a rapid rise in water levels upstream of the jam. These floods threaten human safety and damage properties and infrastructures as the floods resulting from ice-jams are sudden. Hence, the ice-jam prediction tools can give an early warning to increase response time and minimize the possible corresponding damages. However, the ice-jam prediction has always been a challenging problem as there is no analytical method available for this purpose. Nonetheless, ice jams form when some hydro-meteorological conditions happen, a few hours to a few days before the event. The ice-jam prediction problem can be considered as a binary multivariate time-series classification. Deep learning techniques have been successfully applied for time-series classification in many fields such as finance, engineering, weather forecasting, and medicine. In this research, we successfully applied CNN, LSTM, and combined CN-LSTM networks for ice-jam prediction for all the rivers in Quebec. The results show that the CN-LSTM model yields the best results in the validation and generalization with F1 scores of 0.82 and 0.91, respectively. This demonstrates that CNN and LSTM models are complementary, and a combination of them further improves classification.

Analyse hydro-météorologique des débâcles de glaces de la rivière Nashwaak (Nouveau-Brunswick)

1992 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-354
Author(s):  
S. Hebabi ◽  
N. El-Jabi ◽  
S. Sarraf
Keyword(s):  
New Brunswick ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Predictive Model ◽  
Dimensional Analysis ◽  
Predictive Models ◽  
Meteorological Factors ◽  
Ice Jams ◽  
Ice Jam ◽  
Ice Breakup ◽  
Meteorological Analysis

The problems associated with ice cover formation, development, and breakup are numerous. In fact, every year ice breakup and ice jams cause damage throughout Canada. In New Brunswick, ice breakup is responsible for 35% of floods and 70% of damage to bridges. This paper describes a hydro-meteorological analysis of ice breakup along the Nashwaak River in New Brunswick. Thirteen events that occur between 1969 and 1982 were studied. First, river records were used to determine a breakup initiation index. A dimensional analysis was then performed integrating the index with meteorological variables and river flows. Although there was no resemblance between variations of meteorological factors from one event to the next, the results suggest that the index formulated has potential as a tool for development of predictive models for ice breakup. Key words: ice breakup, ice jam, floods, meteorology, flow, predictive model, damages, bridges, Nashwaak River.

River ice breakup processes: recent advances and future directions

2007 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 703-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spyros Beltaos
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Ice Cover ◽  
Aquatic Life ◽  
Ice Jams ◽  
Ice Jam ◽  
Ice Breakup ◽  
Extreme Flood ◽  
Mitigation Methods

The breakup of the winter ice cover is a brief but seminal event in the regime of northern rivers, and in the life cycle of river and basin ecosystems. Breakup ice jams can cause extreme flood events, with major impacts on riverside communities, aquatic life, infrastructure, navigation, and hydropower generation. Related concerns are underscored by the issue of climate change and the faster warming that is predicted for northern parts of the globe. Advances in knowledge of breakup processes and related topics, achieved over the past 15 years or so, are outlined. They pertain to breakup initiation and ice-jam formation, ice-jam properties and numerical modelling of ice jams, waves generated by ice-jam releases, forecasting and mitigation methods, sediment transport, ecological aspects, and climate-change impacts. Major knowledge gaps are associated with the dynamic interaction of moving ice with the flow and with the stationary ice cover. Increasing computing capacity and remote sensing sophistication are expected to provide effective means for bridging these gaps. Key words: climate, ecology, forecasting, ice jam, modelling, onset, sediment, wave.

scholarly journals On the discretization of river networks for large scale hydrologic-hydrodynamic models

RBRH ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Mainardi Fan ◽  
Vinícius Alencar Siqueira ◽  
Ayan Santos Fleischmann ◽  
João Paulo Fialho Brêda ◽  
Rodrigo Cauduro Dias de Paiva ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
River Networks ◽  
Segmentation Method ◽  
Hydrodynamic Models ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Discharge Water ◽  
Floodplain Rivers

ABSTRACT The discretization of river networks is a critical step for computing flow routing in hydrological models. However, when it comes to more complex hydrologic-hydrodynamic models, adaptations in the spatial representation of model calculation units are further required to allow cost-effective simulations, especially for large scale applications. The objective of this paper is to assess the impacts of river discretization on simulated discharge, water levels and numerical stability of a catchment-based hydrologic-hydrodynamic model, using a fixed river length (Δx) segmentation method. The case study was the Purus river basin, a sub-basin of the Amazon, which covers an area that accounts for rapid response upstream reaches to downstream floodplain rivers. Results indicate that the maximum and minimum discharges are less affected by the adopted Δx (reach-length), whereas water levels are more influenced by this selection. It is showed that for the explicit local inertial one-dimensional routing, Δx and the α parameter of CFL (Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy) condition must be carefully chosen to avoid mass balance errors. Additionally, a simple Froude number-based flow limiter to avoid numerical issues is proposed and tested.

Forecasting breakup water levels at Fort McMurray, Alberta, using multiple linear regression

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (9) ◽  
pp. 1227-1238 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Mahabir ◽  
F E Hicks ◽  
C Robichaud ◽  
A Robinson Fayek
Keyword(s):  
Linear Regression ◽  
Multiple Linear Regression ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
Statistical Modelling ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
River Ice ◽  
Fort Mcmurray ◽  
Ice Jam ◽  
Ice Breakup

Spring breakup on northern rivers can result in ice jams that present severe flood risk to adjacent communities. Such events can occur extremely rapidly, leaving little or no advanced warning to residents. Fort McMurray, Alberta, is one such community, and at present no forecasting model exists for this site. Many of the previous studies regarding ice jam flood forecasting methods, in general, cite the lack of a comprehensive database as an obstacle to statistical modelling. This paper documents the development of an extensive database containing 106 variables, and covering the period from 1972 to 2004, that was created for ice jam forecasting on the Athabasca River. Through multiple linear regression analysis, equations were developed to model the maximum water level during spring breakup. The optimal model contained a combination of hydrological and meteorological data collected from early fall until the day before river ice breakup. The number of historical years of data, rather than the scope of variables, was found to be the major limitation in verifying the results presented in this study.Key words: river ice, breakup jam, multiple linear regression.

scholarly journals Dealing with uncertainty in the probability of overtopping of a flood mitigation dam

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 2497-2507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleni Maria Michailidi ◽  
Baldassare Bacchi
Keyword(s):  
Confidence Intervals ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Rating Curve ◽  
Sampling Uncertainty ◽  
Flood Peak ◽  
Flood Volume ◽  
Maximum Water Level ◽  
Maximum Water ◽  
Different Sources

Abstract. In recent years, copula multivariate functions were used to model, probabilistically, the most important variables of flood events: discharge peak, flood volume and duration. However, in most of the cases, the sampling uncertainty, from which small-sized samples suffer, is neglected. In this paper, considering a real reservoir controlled by a dam as a case study, we apply a structure-based approach to estimate the probability of reaching specific reservoir levels, taking into account the key components of an event (flood peak, volume, hydrograph shape) and of the reservoir (rating curve, volume–water depth relation). Additionally, we improve information about the peaks from historical data and reports through a Bayesian framework, allowing the incorporation of supplementary knowledge from different sources and its associated error. As it is seen here, the extra information can result in a very different inferred parameter set and consequently this is reflected as a strong variability of the reservoir level, associated with a given return period. Most importantly, the sampling uncertainty is accounted for in both cases (single-site and multi-site with historical information scenarios), and Monte Carlo confidence intervals for the maximum water level are calculated. It is shown that water levels of specific return periods in a lot of cases overlap, thus making risk assessment, without providing confidence intervals, deceiving.

Phreatic Water Surface Profiles along Ice Jams – An Experimental Study

1996 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 185-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raafat G. Saadé ◽  
Semaan Sarraf
Keyword(s):  
Water Level ◽  
Water Surface ◽  
Surface Profile ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Ice Jams ◽  
Ice Jam ◽  
Phreatic Water ◽  
Northern Regions ◽  
Water Surface Profile ◽  
Ice Floes

In Northern Regions, the formation of ice jams along many rivers is a common phenomena. These ice jams may occur during the freeze-up and more importantly during the spring break-up period. Ice jams in general have considerable effects on the water levels because they alter the water surface profile for stretches of tens of kilometers along the rivers. As a consequence, water levels increase significantly upstream of the ice jam and result in the flooding of towns situated along the river banks. Knowledge of the water levels within an ice jam can be used to estimate many parameters that are difficult to measure and observe. Examples of such parameters are the local and global ice jam resistance to the flow, and forces acting within an ice jam. While ice jams are notorious causes of serious problems in hydraulic engineering, very little engineering methodology exists to deal with such problems. In this paper, the results of a laboratory study aimed at investigating the development of the water surface profile along an ice jam that is lodged in place, are analyzed and presented. A rectangular flume with a horizontal bed was used for the experiments. Twelve experiments carried out under different geometrical, hydrodynamic and ice conditions, were analysed. A simulated floating ice cover was used to arrest the downstream transport of the ice floes, forming the ice jams. The experiments indicate two types of ice jams, those that are floating and others that are lodged at one or more locations along their length. The phreatic water level along a floating ice jam is up to 0.92 the ice jam thickness. This is not true when an ice jam is lodged in place. Different experiments have shown that the water surface profile along a lodged ice jam follows similar tendencies regardless of the geometry, ice floe size distribution and hydrodynamic conditions. It was found that the phreatic water level varies linearly from the trailing edge of the ice jam up to approximately 90% of its length downstream. Towards the remaining part of the jam's length the water level follows a cubic polynomial line.

Incorporating the effects of upstream ice jam releases in the prediction of flood levels in the Hay River delta, Canada

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (8) ◽  
pp. 643-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael De Coste ◽  
Yuntong She ◽  
Julia Blackburn
Keyword(s):  
River Delta ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Ice Jams ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Release Wave ◽  
Ice Jam ◽  
Great Slave Lake ◽  
Extreme Flooding ◽  
Flooding Events ◽  
The Town

The town of Hay River, located in the Northwest Territories, Canada, is vulnerable to ice jam flooding occurring in the adjacent Hay River delta. The most extreme flooding events have occurred when ice jams in the channels of the delta were pushed downstream towards the mouth at Great Slave Lake. This movement has been linked to incoming waves from ice jam release in the upstream reaches of the Hay River. This study incorporated the effect of an upstream ice jam release wave into the prediction of ice jam caused flood levels in the delta by integrating three one-dimensional models. The method was validated with observed breakup events and then used to simulate various combinations of ice and water conditions in the river and the delta. Multiple linear regression analyses were applied to the results to develop a prediction tool for assessing ice jam flood risk.

Analysis of breakup and ice jams on the Athabasca River at Fort McMurray, Alberta

1984 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 444-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. D. Andres ◽  
P. F. Doyle
Keyword(s):  
Internal Friction ◽  
Open Water ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Roughness Coefficient ◽  
Produce Water ◽  
Ice Jams ◽  
Athabasca River ◽  
Fort Mcmurray ◽  
Ice Jam ◽  
Clearwater River

During breakup, severe ice jams form at Fort McMurray, Alberta because of the dramatic change in the character of the Athabasca River at that location. Such jams, which produce water levels in the order of 10 m above the normal open water stage, were documented in 1977, 1978, and 1979. Additional channel surveys and improved estimates of discharge made since the initial analysis have redefined the ice jam characteristics. The Manning roughness coefficient of the underside of the ice jams was found to be 0.072. The new discharge estimates, which were up to twice those previously reported, result in a calculated coefficient of internal friction of 0.8–2.7. This is 30–100% greater than previous estimates, but still similar to values determined for ice jams at other locations.Even with the variation in the coefficient of internal friction, the river stage due to an ice jam at Fort McMurray could be computed with reasonable accuracy for a range of given discharges. If jams form downstream of the mouth of the Clearwater River at discharges greater than 800 m3/s (considerably less than the 1-in-2-year open water flood), flooding will occur within lower Fort McMurray. Unfortunately, the frequency of such an event is unknown because the probabilities of both the discharge being exceeded and the jam occurrence cannot be defined. Key words: ice, breakup, ice jam, ice roughness, flooding, hydraulics.

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