WC142 MayJune 2025 - Magazine - Page 14
“Springbank came out as one of the very clear
leaders,o昀昀eringsomewhereintheorderofa
threeto昀椀vetimesbene昀椀t-to-costratio.”
14
WATER C AN ADA • M AY/JUNE 2025
Planning started almost immediately after the 2013 flood, with
the city and Province discussing wet weather impacts and measures
that might address potential reoccurrences. Through hydrologic,
morphologic, and floodplain analyses, and reviewing impact
assessments from prior events as well as climate change projections,
the two jurisdictions concluded that upstream storage is key to
mitigation because the Rockies are close enough to Calgary and
the descent eastwards steep enough that melting snow combined
with rain in the Elbow River watershed can trigger flooding down
below in mere hours. “It’s like a steep roof that produces runoff
rapidly and severely,” Frigo says. “It became clear through all that
analysis that we would need more than one approach. It would be
really difficult to build flood barriers and other infrastructure along
the Elbow River that could, by themselves, mitigate this kind of
risk.” A 2017 City of Calgary report, Flood Mitigation Measures
Assessment, weighed the financial impacts from flooding alongside
estimates for various interventions. “Springbank came out as one
of the very clear leaders, offering somewhere in the order of a three
to five times benefit-to-cost ratio,” Frigo says.
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
Government of Allberta
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