Dynamics of river ice jams

河冰堵塞洪水由于其发生的速度之快，对人类的生命和财产构成了重大威胁。在我们的实地研究中，在冰塞释放事件期间，我们测量到水位每分钟上升近1米，在加拿大许多社区，与冰塞形成事件相关的洪水水位经常超过夏季洪水水位。事实上，冰塞导致如此戏剧性的水位上升，加上河道因大量冰而堵塞，使它们难以预测，而且极具挑战性。然而，经过十多年的集中研究，我和我的学生已经成功地开发了预测和测量冰堵塞形成和释放事件的技术，无论是在实验室还是在现场。这些知识构成了我们的冰塞洪水数值模型的基础，并为我们自己和其他人的模型提供了有价值的验证数据。

River ice jam floods present significant threats to human life and property, because of the speed with which they can occur. We have measured water level rises approaching 1m per minute in our field studies during ice jam release events, and the flood levels associated with ice jam formation events frequently exceed summer flood levels in many communities across Canada. The fact that ice jams cause such dramatic water level rises, along with the congestion of river channels with massive amounts of ice, make them difficult to predict and extremely challenging to measure. However, after more than a decade of focused research, my students and I have succeeded in developing techniques for predicting and measuring ice jam formation and release events, both in the lab and in the field. This knowledge has formed the basis of our numerical models of ice jam floods, and has provided valuable validation data for our own, and others', models as well.