New insights into debris-flow hazards from an extraordinary event in the Colorado Front Range

Coe, Jeffrey A.; Kean, Jason W.; Godt, Jonathan W.; Baum, Rex L.; Jones, Edward O.; Gochis, David; Andérson, Gregory S.

doi:10.1130/gsatg214a.1

Cited by 72 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…However, return periods of rainfall events often do not directly relate to the return period of the resulting flood. Nevertheless, the heavy rainfall in the foothills and mountains resulted in over 1,100 documented landslides (see the sidebar on the "Societal impacts from September 2013 Colorado floods"; Coe et al 2014) and led to the incredible flood damage described below. for six consecutive 12-hourly soundings (Fig.…”

Section: Societal Impacts From September 2013 Colorado Floods Continuedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…5. Over 1,100 landslide and hillslope failures occurred during the event, which have been implicated in 3 of the 10 fatalities (Coe et al 2014;Fig. SB1a).…”

Section: Societal Impacts From September 2013 Colorado Floodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Table SB1 in this sidebar provides a basic summary of what these impacts were in terms of lives lost, communities disrupted, and transportation corridors destroyed. Figure SB1a illustrates the widespread nature of the 1,138 documented debris flows that occurred during this event (Coe et al 2014) and Fig. SB1b shows the 18 counties that were declared by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as federal disaster areas.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Great Colorado Flood of September 2013

Gochis

Schumacher

Friedrich

et al. 2015

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

196

177

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During the second week of September 2013, a seasonally uncharacteristic weather pattern stalled over the Rocky Mountain Front Range region of northern Colorado bringing with it copious amounts of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean. This feed of moisture was funneled toward the east-facing mountain slopes through a series of mesoscale circulation features, resulting in several days of unusually widespread heavy rainfall over steep mountainous terrain. Catastrophic flooding ensued within several Front Range river systems that washed away highways, destroyed towns, isolated communities, necessitated days of airborne evacuations, and resulted in eight fatalities. The impacts from heavy rainfall and flooding were felt over a broad region of northern Colorado leading to 18 counties being designated as federal disaster areas and resulting in damages exceeding $2 billion (U.S. dollars). This study explores the meteorological and hydrological ingredients that led to this extreme event. After providing a basic timeline of events, synoptic and mesoscale circulation features of the event are discussed. Particular focus is placed on documenting how circulation features, embedded within the larger synoptic flow, served to funnel moist inflow into the mountain front driving several days of sustained orographic precipitation. Operational and research networks of polarimetric radar and surface instrumentation were used to evaluate the cloud structures and dominant hydrometeor characteristics. The performance of several quantitative precipitation estimates, quantitative precipitation forecasts, and hydrological forecast products are also analyzed with the intention of identifying what monitoring and prediction tools worked and where further improvements are needed.

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Section: Societal Impacts From September 2013 Colorado Floods Continuedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…5. Over 1,100 landslide and hillslope failures occurred during the event, which have been implicated in 3 of the 10 fatalities (Coe et al 2014;Fig. SB1a).…”

Section: Societal Impacts From September 2013 Colorado Floodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Great Colorado Flood of September 2013

Gochis

Schumacher

Friedrich

et al. 2015

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

196

177

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“…5036 K. Zhang et al: iCRESTRIGRS: a coupled flood-landslide modeling system the sum of the losses from the hazards if acting separately. One example is the intense precipitation in the Colorado Front Range on 11-12 September 2013 that triggered flash floods and at least 1138 debris flows, resulting in 8 fatalities and more than 20 000 buildings, 485 miles of roads and 50 bridges either damaged or destroyed (Coe et al, 2014). Another example of the devastating impacts of cascading multiple hazards: rain from the remnants of hurricanes Frances and Ivan triggered 400 reported slope failures of various types in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, and at least 33 debris flows and major floods in Macon County, causing 5 deaths, destroying 16 homes, and damaging infrastructure (Wooten et al, 2008;Bauer et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

iCRESTRIGRS: a coupled modeling system for cascading flood–landslide disaster forecasting

Zhang

Xue

Hong

et al. 2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Severe storm-triggered floods and landslides are two major natural hazards in the US, causing property losses of USD 6 billion and approximately 110-160 fatalities per year nationwide. Moreover, floods and landslides often occur in a cascading manner, posing significant risk and leading to losses that are significantly greater than the sum of the losses from the hazards when acting separately. It is pertinent to couple hydrological and geotechnical modeling processes to an integrated flood-landslide cascading disaster modeling system for improved disaster preparedness and hazard management. In this study, we developed the iCRESTRIGRS model, a coupled flash flood and landslide initiation modeling system, by integrating the Coupled Routing and Excess STorage (CREST) model with the physically based Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability (TRIGRS) landslide model. The iCRESTRIGRS system is evaluated in four river basins in western North Carolina that experienced a large number of floods, landslides and debris flows triggered by heavy rainfall from Hurricane Ivan during 16-18 September 2004. The modeled hourly hydrographs at four USGS gauge stations show generally good agreement with the observations during the entire storm period. In terms of landslide prediction in this case study, the coupled model has a global accuracy of 98.9 % and a true positive rate of 56.4 %. More importantly, it shows an improved predictive capability for landslides relative to the stand-alone TRIGRS model. This study highlights the important physical connection between rainfall, hydrological processes and slope stability, and provides a useful prototype model system for operational forecasting of flood and landslide.

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“…In a special situation, negative LBV indicates the brand value increases under the effect of the aforementioned factors. Traditionally LBV is not included in VDFE, but for the tourist town the BV exists and grows with the town development (Huan et al 2004;Zimmermann 2004;Coe et al 2014;Wu and Hayashi 2014). Therefore, it is reasonable to estimate the VDFE considering the LBV.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Valuation of debris flow mitigation measures in tourist towns: a case study on Hongchun gully in southwest China

Chen

et al. 2016

J. Mt. Sci.

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General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms However, a vast number of these towns are located in the mountain areas, which are constantly threatened by natural hazards such as debris flows. If a huge investment is spent on the hazard control engineering, the value on the engineering project should be estimated properly. However, such valuations at tourist towns are usually very challenging and controversial. In this study, an attempt has been made to evaluate the economic value of the debris flow control engineering in tourist towns by integrating both welfare and disaster economics. The total value of debris flow prevention and control engineering in tourist towns (VDFE) includes investment cost (IC), disaster mitigation benefit (DMB), and loss of brand value (LBV). Here DMB is assessed by the cost-benefit method. The LBV is estimated by incorporating brand equity and cost-benefit methods. The engineering for debris flow control in the Hongchun Gully of southwest China was built to protect Yingxiu tourist town and was assessed as an example. The IC for the engineering is 180 million RMB, however, the VDFE reaches as high as 3,401 million RMB, of which the LBV is 169 million RMB, and the input-output ratio is 1:18. Thus, the LBV cannot be neglected in case of VDFE estimation process. The more developed the tourism in one town or city is, the greater the LBV and the higher the VDFE are.

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New insights into debris-flow hazards from an extraordinary event in the Colorado Front Range

Cited by 72 publications

References 20 publications

The Great Colorado Flood of September 2013

The Great Colorado Flood of September 2013

iCRESTRIGRS: a coupled modeling system for cascading flood–landslide disaster forecasting

Valuation of debris flow mitigation measures in tourist towns: a case study on Hongchun gully in southwest China

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