Abstract
Despite ubiquitous warming, the lower Oder River typically freezes over almost every year. Ice jams may occur during freeze-up and ice cover breakup phases, particularly in the middle and lower reaches of the river, with weirs and piers. The slush ice and ice blocks may accumulate to form ice jams, leading to backwater effects and substantial water level rise. The small bottom slope of the lower Oder and the tidal backflow from the Baltic Sea enhance the formation of ice jams during cold weather conditions, jeopardizing the dikes. Therefore, development of an ice jam flood forecasting system for the Oder River is much needed. This commentary presents selected results from an international workshop that took place in Wrocław (Poland) on 26–27 November 2018 that brought together an international team of experts to explore the requirements and research opportunities in the field of ice jam flood forecasting and risk assessment for the Oder River section along the German–Polish border. The workshop launched a platform for collaboration amongst Canadian, German and Polish scientists, government officials and water managers to pave a way forward for joint research focused on achieving the long-term goal of forecasting, assessing and mitigating ice jam impacts along the lower Oder. German and Polish government agencies are in need of new tools to forecast ice jams and assess their subsequent consequences and risks to communities and ship navigation along a river. Addressing these issues will also help research and ice flood management in a Canadian context. A research program would aim to develop a modelling system by addressing fundamental issues that impede the prediction of ice jam events and their consequences in cold regions.
Highlights
Large floods continue to bring death and suffering and immense economic damage throughout the world
When developing an ice jam flood forecasting system, it is important that the whole life-cycle of
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Summary
Large floods continue to bring death and suffering and immense economic damage throughout the world. The small bed slope of the lower reaches of the Oder River and the tidal backflow from the Baltic Sea promote the formation of ice and ice jam occurrences during cold weather conditions. Such events make dikes along this part of the river vulnerable to breaches, a potentially catastrophic outcome of extended flooding throughout the adjacent low-lying area of the Oderbruch. The network will help advance research in river ice processes and ice flood management with the aim of developing more reliable modelling systems to address fundamental issues that impede fundamentalissues issuesthat thatimpede impede the the prediction prediction of of ice ice jam jam events fundamental events and and their their consequences consequencesin inall allcold cold the prediction of ice jam events and their consequences in all cold region countries worldwide
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