Author(s): Robyn Andrishak; J. Nicolas Abarca; Agata Wojtowicz; Faye Hicks
Linked Author(s): Faye Hicks
Keywords: No keywords
Abstract: The complex water-ice interactions that occur on a river during freeze-up are highly dependent on its unique planform characteristics, human influences such as river engineering works, and the ambient weather conditions that evolve from year-to-year. For this reason, it is often quite difficult to model freeze-up processes without a detailed understanding of the ice regime of a particular river and reach of interest. On the lower Athabasca River north of Fort McMurray, there are growing demands for water due to expansions in industrial development related to the oil sands, yet nothing is known about how the formation and presence of an ice cover will affect winter water availability as water use changes. As a step towards addressing this knowledge gap, a combination of field study and modeling of the freeze-up regime of the lower Athabasca River began in the fall of 2006. The goal of the field program is to document the freeze-up regime and provide a framework for 1-D (and, ultimately 2-D) freeze-up modeling within the reach. This paper reports on the freeze-up field monitoring program, and presents preliminary results of the freeze-up modeling efforts undertaken based on data collected in the first two years of this study. Simulation results using the University of Alberta’s River1D river ice process model are presented and compared with various data collected in the field.
Year: 2008