Development of an Ice Jam Flood Forecasting System for the Lower Oder River—Requirements for Real-Time Predictions of Water, Ice and Sediment Transport

Abstract

Despite ubiquitous warming, the lower Oder River typically freezes over almost every year. Ice jams may occur during freeze-up and ice cover breakup phases, particularly in the middle and lower reaches of the river, with weirs and piers. The slush ice and ice blocks may accumulate to form ice jams, leading to backwater effects and substantial water level rise. The small bottom slope of the lower Oder and the tidal backflow from the Baltic Sea enhance the formation of ice jams during cold weather conditions, jeopardizing the dikes. Therefore, development of an ice jam flood forecasting system for the Oder River is much needed. This commentary presents selected results from an international workshop that took place in Wrocław (Poland) on 26–27 November 2018 that brought together an international team of experts to explore the requirements and research opportunities in the field of ice jam flood forecasting and risk assessment for the Oder River section along the German–Polish border. The workshop launched a platform for collaboration amongst Canadian, German and Polish scientists, government officials and water managers to pave a way forward for joint research focused on achieving the long-term goal of forecasting, assessing and mitigating ice jam impacts along the lower Oder. German and Polish government agencies are in need of new tools to forecast ice jams and assess their subsequent consequences and risks to communities and ship navigation along a river. Addressing these issues will also help research and ice flood management in a Canadian context. A research program would aim to develop a modelling system by addressing fundamental issues that impede the prediction of ice jam events and their consequences in cold regions.

Estimation of the Dependence of Ice Phenomena Trends on Air and Water Temperature in River

“…Numerous studies have stressed that changes in the RI regime are the result of warmer winters, a fact that corresponds well with the positive TA trend in the cool half-year period [14,[54][55][56]; this may, in consequence, translate into positive change tendencies of TW and the disappearance of periods of icing [4,6,16,17,51,57,58]. In the case of the Noteć River, no identical models of the tendencies of the occurrence of IP in the researched period were obtained.…”

“…The FoI phenomenon very rarely occurs in the river, while its drift is usually accelerated by the break-up of IC caused by the augmentation of the water level in spring. The accumulation of a considerable quantity of FoI along a small section of the river may lead to the formation of IJ and thus to ice jam flooding [58,68], which, in the case of the Noteć River, is recorded along its middle and lower course (NU and NK water gauges). The phenomenon of IJ in the Noteć River, similarly to FoI, is extremely rare, with the last such occurrence taking place in 2010.…”

Assessing and Mitigating Ice-Jam Flood Hazards and Risks: A European Perspective

“…These methodologies and systems have also been implemented successfully in ice-jam flood forecasting systems for operational use by the government of Newfoundland and Labrador for the lower (Atlantic) Churchill River [24,25] and by the government of Manitoba for the lower Red River in Manitoba [26]. Requirements for an operational ice-jam flood forecasting system for the Oder River have been laid out in [1] and the need to include such methodologies for ice conditions can be seen in Figure 14, which shows a rapid rise in the backwater levels at Hohensaaten-Finow (see map in Figure 11 for the location) caused by an ice jam downstream of that gauge in February 2021. Forecasts on the rising limb of the event grossly underestimated the water levels attained by the ice jamming since no river ice processes are integrated in the current hydraulic model used for operational forecasting.…”

“…Most of the participants are shown in the group photo in Figure 1. This workshop was a follow-up to the workshop entitled "Developing an ice-jam flood forecasting system for the Oder River" held in Wroclaw, Poland on 26 and 27 November 2018 [1]. The Pozna ń workshop summarized in this commentary extends the capabilities of the ice-jam flood forecasting discussed in the Wroclaw workshop by to exploring methods and requirements for the assessment and mapping of ice-jam flood hazards and risks from a European perspective.…”

Radar Scatter Decomposition to Differentiate between Running Ice Accumulations and Intact Ice Covers along Rivers

“…It is hoped that with the launch of the Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) in February 2019, a more reliable and frequent imagery source will be made available which is desperately needed in an ice-jam flood forecasting context. The reader is referred to Lindenschmidt et al [23] for an example of the requirements of an ice-jam flood forecasting system.…”