Improving American River flood frequency analyses / Committee on American River Flood Frequencies, Water Science and Technology Board, Commission on Geoscieces, Environment, and Resources, National Research Council.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on American River Flood Frequencies.

Series:

Compass series (Washington, D.C.)

Compass series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Floods--California--American River.

Floods.

American River (Calif.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 120 pages) : illustrations, maps

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : National Academy Press, 1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Sacramento, California, has grown literally at the edge of the Sacramento and American Rivers and for 150 years has struggled to protect itself from periodic floods by employing structural and land management measures. Much of the population lives behind levees, and most of the city's downtown business and government area is vulnerable to flooding. A major flood in 1986 served as impetus for efforts by federal, state, and local entities to identify an acceptable and feasible set of measures to increase Sacramento's level of safety from American River floods. Numerous options were identified in 1991 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in a report known as the American River Watershed Investigation. Due to the controversial nature of many of the alternatives identified in that report, study participants were not able to reach consensus on any of the flood control options. In response, the Congress directed the USACE to reevaluate available flood control options and, at the same time, asked the USACE to engage the National Research Council (NRC) as an independent advisor on these difficult studies. In 1995 NRC's Committee on Flood Control Alternatives in the American River Basin issued Flood Risk Management and the American River Basin: An Evaluation. This report outlined an approach for improving the selection of a flood risk reduction strategy from the many available.

Contents:

Improving American River Flood Frequency Analyses

Copyright

Preface

Contents

Executive Summary

DATA SOURCES AND NON-STATIONARITY

FLOOD FREQUENCY ANALYSIS

IMPLICATIONS FOR FLOODPLAIN CERTIFICATION

RESEARCH NEEDS

1 Sacramento and the Struggle to Manage Flood Risk

SETTLING IN THE FLOODPLAIN

RISK REDUCTION EFFORTS

CURRENT PLANNING EFFORTS AND CONTROVERSIES

Flood Flow Frequency Relationships

Hydrologic Risk and Uncertainty Analysis

TECHNICAL ISSUES AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

USACE Approach

Analyses

Reactions to USACE Analysis

2 Data Sources

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF FLOOD FREQUENCY DATA

Systematic Streamflow Data

Precipitation Data

Historical Flood Data

Paleoflood Data

Regional Analyses of Hydrometeorologic Extremes

AMERICAN RIVER DATA

Homogeneity of the Systematic Flood Record

Historical Activities in the American River Basin

Historical Data

Envelope Curves

Probable Maximum Flood

SUMMARY

3 Flood Frequency Estimates for the American River

INTRODUCTION

BULLETIN 17-B

Estimation of the Skew Parameter

Outliers

Historical and Paleoflood Information

Alternative Treatments of Outliers and Historical and Paleoflood Information

Censoring

Historical and Paleoflood Data

EXPECTED PROBABILITY

SUMMARY OF COMMITTEE APPROACH

ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN RIVER DATA

Estimation of Average Three-Day Flows from Instantaneous Peak Flows

Generalized Skew Coefficient

Alternative Frequency Estimates for the American River Data

Results

Low Censoring

Beyond Bulletin 17-B

4 Climate and Floods: Role of Non-Stationarity

GENERAL METEOROLOGICAL FEATURES OF MAJOR FLOODS

OBSERVED CLIMATE AND STREAMFLOW VARIABILITY

Non-Stationarity of American River Floods

Trends in Systematic Records of Other Nearby Basins.

Trends in California

U.S. Trends

Relation of American River to Trends in Hemispheric Circulation

Changes in Seasonality

Trends in Longer Proxy Records

SOURCES OF SIERRA NEVADA CLIMATE VARIABILITY

El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

Western US. and California Climate Relations to ENSO

Regimes of El Niño/Southern Oscillation

Pacific Decadal Oscillation

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation as a Potential Modulator of ENSO Effects

Regimes in ENSO Resulting from PDO Decadal Modulation

Other Potential PDO Effects Not Involving ENSO

Other Potential Natural Influences on California

GLOBAL CHANGE ISSUES

5 Summary and Recommendations

RECOMMENDED FLOOD FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION

BEYOND BULLETIN 17-B

POST-1950 INCREASE IN FREQUENCY OF LARGE FLOODS

References

Appendix Biographical Sketches of Committee Members.

Notes:

"Support for this project was provided by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under DACW05-98-C-0031"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 107-118).

ISBN:

9786610186020

9780309173124

0309173124

9781280186028

128018602X

9780309538930

0309538939

9780585068817

058506881X

OCLC:

613379597