Description
This study delineates flood hazard areas and determines design flood levels along the Bow River and Bighill and Jumpingpound Creeks through Cochrane. The study area includes about 27 kilometres of the Bow River, almost five kilometres of Bighill Creek and about five kilometres of Jumpingpound Creek. Ice jam flooding is the design condition along the Bow River. The study uses analysis of historic ice jam data at River Avenue Bridge to determine 100-year ice jam water levels along the Bow River mainstem. Open water flooding is the design condition for Bighill and Jumpingpound Creeks. The design discharges for Bighill and Jumpingpound Creeks are 20.8 m³/s and 323 m³/s respectively. The headwaters of the Bow River are in the Rocky Mountains upstream of Lake Louise. Although there are a number of storage reservoirs in the basin upstream of Cochrane, their primary purpose is to provide hydroelectric power and thus they offer little opportunity to moderate flood flows. The original study...