Flooding in New Brunswick under Near-to-Medium Term Regional Climate Change

过去五年，圣约翰河(马利塞特市的沃尔斯托克)春季发生的严重洪水已经成为沿河许多社区的主要问题，修复房屋、道路、桥梁、农场和其他重要的社区和省级基础设施的费用每次都高达数百万美元。我们预计，随着全球气候变化，春季洪灾的时间和强度将会增加。随着以雪和雪雨混合为主的集水区，特别是在流域的源头，过渡到完全以雨水为主的系统，洪水状况将发生潜在的变化。这个为期5年的项目的初步目标是研究和描述最近三次洪灾事件的生物物理性质，即2008年、2018年和2019年的洪灾事件，涉及上游流域变化的地形、天气逐日变化、蒸散水平、积雪动态和土地覆盖变化。这项研究的结果将指导对现有地貌水平年度模型的修订，该模型用于得出土壤水分含量和地表水流动和积累的细粒度估计，目的是估计2008-2019年地表水水平的逐日变化。根据区域气候模型(即RegCM4)提供气候信息的订正景观模型将用于评估圣约翰河上游水灾的中短期(2019-2050年)影响。这项工作将有助于确定由于持续的全球气候变化，圣约翰河上游地区从局部到区域的洪水脆弱性以及对社区、基础设施和动植物栖息地的风险敞口。查尔斯·P-A·布尔克博士将在新不伦瑞克大学(新不伦瑞克弗雷德里克顿)领导这项研究。这项拟议的研究将涉及一名博士生和两名硕士生的指导。

Severe spring flooding of the St. John River (Wolastoq, in Maliseet) in the past five years has become a major problem for many communities along the river, costing millions of dollars each time to repair damages to homes, roads, bridges, farms, and other important community and provincial infrastructure. We anticipate that the timing and intensity of spring flooding will increase with global climate change. Potential shifts in flooding regime will occur as snow- and snow-rain-mix dominated catchments, particularly in the headwaters of the river basin, transition to entirely rain-dominated systems. An initial aim of this 5-year project is to study and characterise the biophysical nature of three recent flooding events, namely those of 2008, 2018, and 2019, with respect to variable topography, day-to-day variation in weather, levels of evapotranspiration, snow cover dynamics, and landcover change in the upper river basin. Findings from this study will guide the revision of an existing landscape-level, annual model used to derive fine-grained estimates of soil water content and surface water flow and accumulation, with an intent to estimate the day-to-day variation in surface water levels from 2008-2019. The revised landscape model with climate input from a regional climate model (i.e., RegCM4) will serve in the assessment of the near-to-medium term (2019-2050) impact of flooding along the upper St. John River network. This work will help identify localised-to-regionalised flooding vulnerabilities and exposures to communities, infrastructure, and plant and animal habitat along the upper St. John River, as a result of continued global climate change. Dr. Charles P.-A. Bourque will lead the research at the University of New Brunswick (Fredericton, New Brunswick). The proposed research will involve the supervision of one doctoral and two master's students.