Quantifying Floods of a Flood Regime in Space and Time

Abstract:

Interaction between a flood hydrograph and floodplain topography results in spatially and temporally variable conditions important for ecosystem process and function. Individual floods whose frequency and dimensionality comprise a river’s flood regime contribute to that variability and in aggregate are important drivers of floodplain ecosystems. Across the globe, water management actions, land use changes as well as hydroclimatic change associated with climate change have profoundly affected natural flood regimes and their expression within the floodplain landscape. Homogenization of riverscapes has degraded once highly diverse and productive ecosystems. Improved understanding of the range of flood conditions and spatial variability within floodplains, or hydrospatial conditions, is needed to improve water and land management and restoration activities to support the variable conditions under which species adapted. This research quantifies the flood regime of a floodplain site undergoing restoration through levee breaching along the lower Cosumnes River of California. One of the few lowland alluvial rivers of California with an unregulated hydrograph and regular floodplain connectivity, the Cosumnes River provides a useful test-bed for exploring river-floodplain interaction. Representative floods of the Cosumnes River are selected from previously-established flood types comprising the flood regime and applied within a 2D hydrodynamic model representing the floodplain restoration site. Model output is analyzed and synthesized to quantify and compare conditions in space and time, using metrics such as depth and velocity. This research establishes methods for quantifying a flood regime’s floodplain inundation characteristics, illustrates the role of flow variability and landscape complexity in producing heterogeneous floodplain conditions, and suggests important implications for managing more ecologically functional floodplains.