CCRN publish poster on 2013 Alberta flood

Severe weather and water management the focus of flood examination

In June 2013, fi­ve people lost their lives when a combination of heavy rainfall and rapidly melting alpine snow triggered severe flooding in the Oldman, Bow and Red Deer River basins of Alberta and the Elk River basin of British Columbia, Canada.

The CCRN has since published a summary poster describing those devastating events and some of the lessons learned. 

The CCRN conducted an in-depth, multi-disciplinary and focal examination of the severe weather and flooding events that occurred in southwestern Alberta in June 2013. A stakeholder workshop was held in Canmore, AB in February 2014 where it was decided that the network would proceed towards a collection of papers for a special issue journal, describing the flood and its meteorology, hydrology and hydraulics, and water management aspects. 

Seven papers have been submitted to the Special Issue Canadian Geophysical Union 2016 of Hydrological Processes and another to the Journal of Hydrometeorology, while four other recent papers present reviews and analyses on this flood. Stay tuned as more papers come online and available. 

(Image: The Grande Rockies Resort (right) in Canmore—location of our workshop on the flood—seen in June 2013. Photo: Jonathan Hayward, Canadian Press.)