Using innovation to determine the potential impact of upslope hazards

Mountain Pass Debris Flow Hazard Assessment

British Columbia extends from the Rocky Mountains to Canada’s Pacific West Coast and is known for its beautiful, rugged scenery. Our client was looking for a way to assess potential hazards from steep mountain terrains that could threaten their pipeline and adjacent infrastructure. They approached our Geohazards team to help determine debris flow hazard for nearly 40 kilometres of pipeline in rugged terrain. To do this our team deployed our shallow landslide model, DebrisFlow Predictor.

During the project, we identified hundreds of possible debris flow initiation locations upslope of the pipeline and simulated over 50,000 debris flows using our novel software DebrisFlow Predictor to characterize runout extent, scour, and deposition along the potential landslide paths. DebrisFlow Predictor’s innovative technology helped our team determine debris flow behavior at the pipeline and ultimately identify zones of hazard (including scour and burial hazards) at the surface location of the pipeline.

The results of our modeling helped our client identify intervals of their pipeline that are prone to debris flow interaction, ultimately focusing their management efforts to specific hazard intervals along the pipe. Through our continued working relationship with the client, we are continuing to employ these methods in other debris flow prone terrain along their route to preserve their infrastructure and the surrounding environment.