FLOODPLAINS OF RIVERS By Ken Zhao
Figure 1: Typical alluvial river valley (diagram by Mandy). Above and left: Figure 2 North Saskatchewan River at Terwillegar Park, Edmonton. A) Aerial view (satellite imagery from Google Earth). B) Crosssection (elevation data from Natural Resources Canada).
resiliency and sustainability of buildings. Understanding the surrounding environment is an important step to getting there.
Foreword When it comes to natural disasters, Alberta is very familiar with the impact it’s had on its communities. Fires have been responsible for the destruction of a variety of communities in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo and other parts of the province for years. The 2016 Horse River wildfire contributed to an estimated $3.6 billion of damage and is considered one of Canada’s worst natural disasters. Alberta is also no stranger to floods. Floods contributed to millions of dollars in property damage in Calgary, High River and Fort McMurray. One of the 28
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top three natural disasters is associated with flooding. The 2013 Southern Alberta floods resulted in approximately $1.72 billion in property damage. These disasters continue to remind us of how fragile we are and that we need to improve our emergency and flood management programs across Alberta. We are seeing more infrastructure being introduced to limit and control fire and floods in high-risk communities. We also see improvements in floodproofing buildings. For this edition, we wanted to provide some background information about flood plains. As building envelope professionals, we’re always looking for ways to improve the
We were fortunate to have a few stories about the devastating events that have occurred and feature building envelop ideas that contribute to resilient buildings located in flood plains. We would like to thank those that came forward with the great stories and articles. In today’s fast paced world finding time to share our experiences is more important than ever. We hope you enjoy the stories and encourage you to send in your ideas for future publications. — Jamie Murphy A floodplain is the normally dryland adjoining alluvial rivers, over which water from the river flows at times of high discharge. Alluvial rivers typically consist of a main channel, floodplains, hillslopes at the formation of the
