Data Collection, Panama Flood of December, 2010

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In December, 2010, the flood of record occurred in the Panama Canal Watershed. The investigators have been working in Panama for approximately 10 years studying the hydrometeorology, hydrology, in-stream wood transport and fate and landslides, and assisting the Panama Canal Authority in setting up a real-time weather and flood forecast system. This extreme event, with a return period thought to be between 100 and 200 years, provides an excellent opportunity to create a database of hydrometeorological, hydrological, and geomorphic features associated with this flood, as well as carbon cycling by large woody debris in a tropical mountainous watershed during an extreme event. Our project consists of field collection campaign, atmospheric simulations, and database creation components. Field studies will document landslides, large woody debris accumulations, high water marks, and geomorphic changes within the 414 sq. km old-growth upper Rio Chagres watershed. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) atmospheric model will simulate the storms that caused the floods. Rain gage data provided by the Panama Canal Authority will be used in conjunction with the WRF model output to generated ground-truthed space-time rainfall series. Collaborations with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and Technological University of Panama will assist in assembling data from disparate sources not readily available. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is a collaborator, as they have an interest in understanding the performance of the Madden Dam, which they designed in the 1920's. During the flood of December, 2010, the Madden dam was pushed to the limits of its design, even though it was originally designed to pass a 10,000-year flood. We will explore whether land-use changes in the watershed are responsible for this change in flood frequency. The long-term historical dataset owing to the existence of the Panama Canal, in addition to the existing hydrological and hydrometorological network will make this one of the best documented extreme flood events in any tropical mountainous watershed to date. The short-term, intensive once-off field campaign will also complement project EAR-1045166 that started on May 1, 2011.