Mitigation Strategies for Watershed Scale Fires, Floods, and Drought
Chris Sturm1
1Watershed Program Director, Colorado Water Conservation Board, Denver, CO, USA; chris.sturm@state.co.us
Recent studies by the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) suggest a potential increase in short-duration rainfall intensity of 5-15% in Colorado. As the pendulum swings wider between drought and extreme precipitation events, the State of Colorado is developing a proactive approach to post-fire flood mitigation. Planning for disaster recovery during or between disasters, i.e. fire followed by flood, does not often allow for innovative or long term solutions. CWCB staff will discuss steps to mitigate impacts from post-fire flooding. These include the use of old tools, e.g. hydraulic modeling, with the newly developed CWCB Fluvial Hazard Zone mapping tool to identify areas of risk. After identifying risk, previously designed project concepts can be fully designed to fit individual site locations. Projects implemented before fire are designed to benefit water supply and ecological health (structure and function). If a fire burns, the treatments provide areas for flood and debris attenuation.