Data Collection, Panama Flood of December, 2010

2010年12月，巴拿马运河分水岭发生了创纪录的洪水。调查人员在巴拿马工作了大约10年，研究水文气象学、水文学、河流中的木材运输以及命运和山体滑坡，并协助巴拿马运河管理局建立实时天气和洪水预报系统。这一极端事件的重现期被认为在100到200年之间，它提供了一个极好的机会来创建与这场洪水相关的水文气象、水文和地貌特征数据库，以及极端事件期间热带山区分水岭中大型木质碎片的碳循环。我们的项目由野外采集活动、大气模拟和数据库创建部分组成。实地研究将记录414平方英尺范围内的山体滑坡、大量木质碎屑堆积、高水位和地貌变化。里约热内卢上游千米的老增长分水岭。天气研究和预报(WRF)大气模型将模拟导致洪水的风暴。巴拿马运河管理局提供的雨量数据将与世界气候变化框架模型输出一起用于生成地面实况时空降雨序列。与史密森热带研究所(STRI)和巴拿马理工大学的合作将有助于从难以获得的不同来源收集数据。美国垦荒局是一个合作者，因为他们有兴趣了解马登大坝的性能。马登大坝是他们在20世纪20年代的S时期设计的。2010年12月的洪水期间，马登大坝被推到了设计的极限，尽管它最初的设计是为了抵御一万年一遇的洪水。我们将探讨分水岭的土地利用变化是否导致洪水频率的变化。由于巴拿马运河的存在，加上现有的水文和水文气象网络，长期的历史数据集将使这一事件成为迄今为止所有热带山区分水岭中记录最充分的极端洪水事件之一。这一短期、密集的一次性实地活动也将是对2011年5月1日开始的EAR-1045166项目的补充。

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.