Ice control to prevent flooding in Ship Creek, Alaska

Daly, Steven F.; Rocks, J.; Reilly-Collette, Marina I.; Gelvin, A.

doi:10.21079/11681/33483

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…This dam was put in place so that the City of Anchorage and the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson can pull drinking water from the river. There are no publicly available data on the amount of water withdrawn from the stream at this dam, but a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study (Daly 2019) found that on average it is about 0.1 m 3 s −1 (2% of mean annual discharge). Finally, the Kenai River watershed has a hydroelectric dam that imports transboundary water.…”

Section: Study Area and Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing Alaskan river discharge during the cold season is driven by recent warming

Blaskey

Koch

Gooseff

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Arctic hydrology is experiencing rapid changes including earlier snow melt, permafrost degradation, increasing active layer depth, and reduced river ice, all of which are expected to lead to changes in stream flow regimes. Recently, long-term (>60 years) climate reanalysis (ERA5) and river discharge observation (USGS NWIS) data have become available. We utilized these data to assess long-term changes in discharge and their hydroclimatic drivers. River discharge during the cold season (October - April) increased by 10% per decade. The most widespread discharge increase occurred in April (15% per decade), the month of ice break-up for the majority of basins. In October, when river ice formation generally begins, average monthly discharge increased by 7% per decade. Long-term air temperature increases in October and April increased the number of days above freezing (+1.1 days per decade) resulting in increased snow ablation (20% per decade) and decreased snow water equivalent (-12% per decade). Compared to the historical period (1960-1989), mean April and October air temperature in the recent period (1990-2019) have greater correlation with monthly discharge from 0.33 to 0.68 and 0.0 to 0.48, respectively. This indicates that the recent increases in air temperature are directly related to these discharge changes. Ubiquitous increases in cold and shoulder-season discharge demonstrate the scale at which hydrologic and biogeochemical fluxes are being altered in the Arctic.

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Section: Study Area and Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing Alaskan river discharge during the cold season is driven by recent warming

Blaskey

Koch

Gooseff

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…Anchor ice dams are relatively rare and usually occur in steep, shallow rivers and streams (Rødtang et al 2021). In Alaska, a case study on Ship Creek near Anchorage, Alaska was completed in 2019 (Daly et al 2019) which analyzed the formation processes of anchor ice and anchor ice dams. Schematics in Figure 9 (A-D) show a systematic development of the typical ice dam process beginning with anchor ice formation along the bed (A) and progressing through increasingly greater ice accumulation on cobbles and boulders (B-C) until only a small subanchor ice channel is available for flow (D).…”

Section: Freeze-upmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Schematics in Figure 9 (A-D) show a systematic development of the typical ice dam process beginning with anchor ice formation along the bed (A) and progressing through increasingly greater ice accumulation on cobbles and boulders (B-C) until only a small subanchor ice channel is available for flow (D). Anchor ice dams can result in significant upstream stage rise but are relatively short in duration since continued exposure to supercooled water is needed for the anchor ice to remain attached to the bottom of the river channel (Daly et al 2019;Kempema and Ettema 2011). Water intakes can experience significant problems with frazil ice if they are operated when the water is supercooled.…”

Section: Freeze-upmentioning

confidence: 99%

Summary of ice jams and mitigation techniques in Alaska

Giovando¹,

Engel²,

Vandevort³

et al. 2023

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Ice is an important part of the Alaska ecosystems and can form through dynamic (e.g., frazil) or static (e.g., thermal) processes. In Alaska, both freeze-up and breakup ice jams occur, however breakup jams during the spring snowmelt period are most common. Historically there have been many river systems in Alaska that have chronic ice jam issues. These ice jams have resulted in several significant ice jam floods. There are ice jam mitigation techniques that can be used to either provide state and local emergency managers warnings of a potential ice jam or reduce the impacts of a jam. Common relatively low-cost mitigation methods that can be implemented prior to a jam forming are monitoring and detection of movement, mechanical or thermal weakening of the ice cover. Permanent measures are also effective and maybe the best option in specific locations. These measures include structures to keep flood waters from inundating areas (e.g., levee) or they can be designed to hold back ice fragments moving downstream (e.g., ice boom and pier structures). Climate change impacts to ice processes are important for Alaska and additional investigations will be needed to quantify the ecologic, hydrologic, and societal impacts.

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Icing and aufeis in cold regions I: the origin of overflow

Turcotte,

Dubnick,

McKillop

et al. 2024

Can. J. Civ. Eng.

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The process of icing involves the freezing of overflow layers, on ground or within streams, and results in ice bodies called “aufeis” that are common in most northern landscapes. Knowledge about aufeis is still limited despite the cold region engineering challenge they represent. Understanding the causes of overflow events leading to aufeis development represents a key for the prediction, mitigation, and management of this geohazard, and can also support the planning and design of infrastructure in the North. This paper introduces a practical classification for the diverse range of overflow processes that generate aufeis, including underrepresented processes, such as the instability of winter streamflow. Importantly, it distinguishes flow conveyance from water supply overflow processes and describes the temporal aspect of icing intensity. Finally, research topics are proposed to improve our understanding of aufeis, including their predictability, the impact of climate change on their occurrence and extent, and stream morphology-aufeis interaction.

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Ice control to prevent flooding in Ship Creek, Alaska

Cited by 3 publications

References 5 publications

Increasing Alaskan river discharge during the cold season is driven by recent warming

Increasing Alaskan river discharge during the cold season is driven by recent warming

Summary of ice jams and mitigation techniques in Alaska

Icing and aufeis in cold regions I: the origin of overflow

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