Debris flow mitigation - adapting to climate change and wildfires

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In western Canada, climate change is causing hotter and dry weather as well as periods of higher intensity precipitation. These conditions conspire to create larger and more severe wildfires followed by more destructive and widely distributed post-wildfire debris flows and floods. A burnt watershed increases surface runoff from rain or snowmelt. The excessive runoff generates debris flows and debris floods that overwhelm stream channels and damage property and infrastructure on alluvial fans near the valley bottoms. There is an urgent need to conduct research to develop mitigation measures for post-wildfire debris flows/floods in an effort to build resiliency to future events triggered by climate extremes.The proposed research aims to identify sites at the highest risk and recommend cost-effective geohazard mitigation methods to protect people and properties, especially those in rural and First Nations communities. Necessary tasks to achieve these objectives include developing better debris flow/flood simulation models, calibrating these models using careful documentation of recent debris flow sites, developing new techniques to create spatially accurate hazard maps, and creating easy-to-understand public guidelines for geohazard protection.