Extension and refinement of a stochastic modelling approach to assess ice-jam flood hazard

Abstract

In the spring of 2020, the town of Fort McMurray, which lies on the banks of the Athabasca River, experienced an ice-jam flood event that was the most severe in approximately 60 years. In order to capture the severity of the event, a stochastic modelling approach, previously developed by the author for ice-jam flood forecasting, has been refined for ice-jam flood hazard and risk assessments and ice-jam mitigation feasibility studies, which is the subject of this paper. Scenarios of artificial breakage demonstrate the applicability of the revised modelling framework.