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Integrating uncertainty: Canyon Creek hyperconcentrated flows of November 1989 and 1990

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Abstract

Canyon Creek drains a 79 km2 watershed in northwestern Washington State. Extensive logging occurred from the mid-1960s to 1980s, which resulted in numerous slope instabilities and a several order of magnitude increase in sediment supply to the creek. On November 9, 1989, a hyperconcentrated flow with a peak discharge of 450 m3/s destroyed one house on the fan. A forensic investigation of the event suggests that a temporary landslide dam may have formed at two coalescing earthflows about 4 km above the fan apex. The 1989 hyperconcentrated flow caused significant aggradation on the fan. One year later to the day, a significant flood occurred, which ran over the aggraded fan surface from the 1989 event. This latter event destroyed four more homes mostly through bank erosion and rendered a section of county road impassable. FLDWAV, a flood routing model capable of simulating unsteady flow conditions, was used to model landslide dam breaches for a number of different dam heights at the earthflows. Modeling results were then combined with historic air photograph interpretation, dendrochronology, and eyewitness accounts to construct a frequency–magnitude relationship for hyperconcentrated flows at Canyon Creek. FLDWAV results were combined with a hyperconcentrated flow runout model (FLO-2D) on the fan to estimate maximum flow depth and flow velocity for the design event, a 500-year return period with a predicted peak discharge of 710 m3/s. A large range of mitigation measures were reviewed, but it was concluded that buy-outs would be the most effective risk reduction measure. Property acquisition commenced in 2004.

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Acknowledgment

This study was originally carried out as an assignment by Kerr Wood Leidal Associates (2003) for Whatcom County Public Works—River and Flood Division. Paula Cooper, Paul Pittman, and Douglas Goldthorp of Whatcom County and Roger Nichols of the USFS provided helpful input and review to the document. Mike Currie of Kerr Wood Leidal reviewed the original report. The original figures were prepared by KWL staff.

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  1. BGC Engineering Inc., #500–1045 Howe Street, Vancouver, V6Z 2A9, British Columbia, Canada

    Matthias Jakob & Hamish Weatherly

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  1. Matthias Jakob
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  2. Hamish Weatherly
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Correspondence to Matthias Jakob.

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Jakob, M., Weatherly, H. Integrating uncertainty: Canyon Creek hyperconcentrated flows of November 1989 and 1990. Landslides 5, 83–95 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-007-0106-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-007-0106-z

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