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2011 Souris River Flood—Will It Happen Again?

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North Dakota State Water Commission 2011 Souris River Flood—Will it Happen Again? A By taking into consideration historical climate record and trends in basin response to various climatic conditions, it was determined flood risk will remain high in the Souris River Basin until the wet climate state ends. During a wet climate state there is about a 0.2-percent chance, in any given year, that there will be another flood like the 2011 flood (or greater). In other words, if the current wet climate state continues during the next 10 years, there is about a 2-percent chance that there will be another flood like the 2011 flood (or greater). Specifically, when looking at Rafferty Reservoir (the primary flood-control structure for downstream communities), there is a 3-percent chance in any given year that the annual capacity will be exceeded. This means that if the wet climate state continues during the next 10 years, there is about a 30-percent chance Rafferty’s annual capacity will be exceeded. B Introduction streamflow-gaging station above Minot, North Dakota. The Souris River Basin is a 61,000 Upstream from Minot, N. Dak., the square kilometer basin in the provinces Souris River is regulated by three reser- of Saskatchewan and Manitoba and the voirs in Saskatchewan (Rafferty, Bound- state of North Dakota (fig. 1). Record set- ary, and Alameda) and Lake Darling in ting rains in May and June of 2011 led to North Dakota (figs. 1 and 2). During the record flooding with peak annual stream- 2011 flood, the city of Minot, N. Dak., flow values (762 cubic meters per second experienced devastating damages with C [m3/s]) more than twice that of any previ- more than 4,000 homes flooded and ously recorded peak streamflow and more 11,000 evacuated (fig. 3). As a result, the than five times the estimated 100 year Souris River Basin Task Force recom- postregulation streamflow (142 3m /s) mended the U.S. Geological Survey (in at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) cooperation with the North Dakota State 105° 100° 95° 51° Assiniboine River Basin D 50° SASKATCHEWAN MANITOBA SourisSouris River Basin 49° Rafferty*#*# *#Alameda Boundary River 48° Lake Darling *# Devils Minot Lake Basin 47° MONTANA Red River of NORTH DAKOTA the North Basin 46° Figure 2. Four reservoirs on the Souris River EXPLANATION upstream from Minot, North Dakota, June 23, *# Reservoir 2011. A, Rafferty Reservoir, regulation began in 45° 1991; B, Boundary Reservoir, regulation began in 1958; C, Alameda Reservoir, regulation Figure 1. Souris River Basin in respect to the Assiniboine, Devils Lake, and began in 1992; D, Lake Darling Reservoir, Red River of the North Basins. constructed in 1936. U.S. Department of the Interior Fact Sheet 2016–3073 U.S. Geological Survey September 2016 toward higher summer and fall precipitation can be seen in the late 1970s (fig. 5). This shift has been documented in a num ber of previous studies (Garbrecht and Rossel, 2002; Shapely and others, 2005; Vecchia, 2008; Small and Islam, 2008). Predicting Future Climate ring analysis, along with recorded meteorological data, led to the developmentUse of the of extended a statistical precipitation climate simulation records from model, the tree- called a stochastic climate model, to predict future climatic conditions such as precipitation, temperature, and potential evapotranspiration (combination of evaporation and transpira tion from plants). Figure 3. (called a step trend) was identified in the precipitation Water Commission) develop a model for estimating the prob From the statistical analysis, a significant transition abilities of future flooding and drought. The model that was record around 1970, with 1912–69 representing a dry cli developed took on four parts:Souris (1) River looking flooding at pastin 2011. climate, (2) mate state and 1970–2011 representing a wet climate state. predicting future climate, (3) developing a streamflow model This is consistent with the nearby Devils Lake Basin in in response to certain climatic variables, and (4) combining northeastern North Dakota (fig. 1), which shows evidence of future climate estimates with the streamflow model to predict alternating states between “wet” and “dry” (Vecchia, 2008). future streamflow events. - Looking at Past Climate 55° 110° were used to extend historical precipitation records further into the pastTree-ring (Ryberg data, and others,in combination 2016). This with type statistical of analysis analysis, is also referred to as hindcasting. For the hindcasting, five distinct clusters of meteorological stations (based on similar SASKATCHEWAN precipitation) were used to extend the precipitation record back to the early 1700s (fig. 4). 105° River Basin, so three 4-month seasons were used in the analy - Runoff is highly dependent on the season in the Souris sis: season 1 (November–February), season 2 (March–June), 50° and season 3 (July–October). For cluster 5, season 3, a shift - "" - "" 100° "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" UNITED STATES "" 95° MONTANA CANADA "" MANITOBA "" "" 45° "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" WYOMING "" "" Base map from Commission for Environmental Cooperation North American Environmental Atlas digital data, 2010 "" "" "" "" North American Datum of 1983 NORTH DAKOTA "" Universal Transverse Mercator projection, zone 14 "" "" "" "" - "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" SOUTH DAKOTA "" "" "" "" "" Figure 4. "" "" "" "" "" "" ring analysis. Climate-based clusters "" 1 Southeast "" "" 2 South-central "" "" "" "" "" Five clusters3 Southwest of meteorological stations used in tree- "" "" "" "" "" "" "" MINNESOTA EXPLANATION "" "" "" "" 4 Northwest 5 Northeast " Souris River Basin Meteorological stations in cluster analysis 260 Extreme wet period Current wet period Precipitation Runoff ●● ● ●● ● ● Observed ● ● ●● ● Extreme wet period precipitation ● ● ● ●●● Temperature Modeled ● ● ● ● ● ●●● ●●●● ● ●●●●● ● ● precipitation ●●●●● ●●●● ●● 240 ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ●●●● ● ● ● ●● ● Snow Snow- ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ●●● ● ● ● ● pack ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Rain ● ● ● ● ●●● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ●● Early ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ●● ● Snowmelt ● ●● ●●●● ● ● ● ● ● ●●● 220 ● ● ●●●●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● snowmelt ● ● ●●● ● ● ●●● ●● ● ● ●● ●●● ●●●● ●● ● ●●● ● ● ● ●● ●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●●●● ● runoff ● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ●● ● ● ●● ●● ● ● ● ● ● ●●●●●●● ●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●●● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● ●●● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ●●● ●● ●● ● ● ● ● ●●● Primary ET ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●● Overland ● ● ●● ●● min(SMS, PET) ●●● ● ●● ●●● 200 ● ● ● ●● ● ●● flow Total seasonal precipitation, in millimeters Total ●●● ● Drought of 1930s Secondary ET Extreme dry period ● ● ~ SM, SMC ● Excess Soil moisture 180 snowmelt 1675 1725 1775 1825 1875 1925 1975 2025 surplus (SMS) runoff Midpoint of 12-year moving average Soil moisture capacity (SMC) Figure 5. Modeled and observed 12-year moving average Permeability precipitation for area representing southern Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan for season 3 (July–October). Soil moisture (SM) Subsurface flow Streamflow Model EXPLANATION A water balance model was developed to convert climatic ET Evapotranspiration PET Potential evapotranspiration data, provided through the stochastic climate model, to monthly min() Minimum natural streamflow estimates. Natural streamflow, or unregulated streamflow, means the effects of Alameda, Rafferty, Boundary, and Lake Darling reservoirs were removed and streamflow was Figure 6. Schematic of the water-balance model. allowed to flow through the basin as it would have before the four reservoirs were installed. The water-balance model takes The stochastic streamflow model was used to generate into account water entering the system (rain and snow) and 100 potential future streamflow traces, each 100 years in dura- leaving the system (runoff, subsurface flow, and evapotranspira- tion, or 10,000 simulation-years of data. An example 100-year tion) to estimate the amount of water contributing to streamflow potential future streamflow trace generated through the sto- (fig. 6). A flow routing model was then used to route flows chastic streamflow model is shown in figure 7. In this simula- through the Souris River Basin. tion, the wet climate state (similar to 1970–2011) continues for an additional 50 years and then transitions to the dry climate Will it Flood Again? state. The data were then used to develop flood-frequency curves, Of particular interest is the likelihood that there will be which provide the probability of a certain flood event happening another flood similar to or more extreme than the 2011 flood. in any given year. Flood-frequency curves are generally consid- To determine this, the likelihood of extreme climatic events ered to be stationary, which means the flood probabilities are the (stochastic climate model) and how the Souris Basin responds to same year-after-year. Another way of stating this is that climate extreme climatic events (water-balance and flow-routing mod- and streamflow conditions are assumed to be in an “equilibrium” els) were combined into a stochastic streamflow model. state; however, the alternating wet and dry climate states in the Souris River below Rafferty Reservoir, Saskatchewan (05NB036) 250 Figure 7. Simulated 10-day mean Q100 streamflow for 100-year simulation 200 Wet period Dry period period (50 years of wet climate state followed by 50 years of dry climate 150 state) for the Souris River below Rafferty Reservoir,
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  • Portage Diversion Layout Recent and Future Projects

    Portage Diversion Layout Recent and Future Projects

    Portage Diversion Layout Recent and Future Projects Assiniboine River Control Structure Public and worker safety improvements Completed in 2015 Works include fencing, signage, and safety boom Electrical and mechanical upgrades Ongoing Works include upgrades to 600V electrical distribution system, replacement of gate control system and mo- tor control center, new bulkhead gate hoist, new stand-by diesel generator fuel/piping system and new ex- terior diesel generator Portage Diversion East Outside Drain Reconstruction of 18 km of drain Completed in 2013 Replacement of culverts beneath three (3) railway crossings Completed in 2018 Recent and Future Projects Portage Diversion Outlet Structure Construction of temporary rock apron to stabilize outlet structure Completed in 2018 Conceptual Design for options to repair or replace structure Completed in 2018 Outlet structure major repair or replacement prioritized over next few years Portage Diversion Channel Removal of sedimentation within channel Completed in 2017 Groundwater/soil salinity study for the Portage Diversion Ongoing—commenced in 2016 Enhancement of East Dike north of PR 227 to address freeboard is- sues at design capacity of 25,000 cfs Proposed to commence in 2018 Multi-phase over the next couple of years Failsafe assessment and potential enhancement of West Dike to han- dle design capacity of 25,000 cfs Prioritized for future years—yet to be approved Historical Operating Guidelines Portage Diversion Operating Guidelines 1984 Red River Floodway Program of Operation Operation Objectives The Portage Diversion will be operated to meet these objectives: 1. To provide maximum benefits to the City of Winnipeg and areas along the Assiniboine River downstream of Portage la Prairie.