Paleoflood Hydrology and Basin Morphometric Characteristics Related to Flooding in the Colorado Front Range

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Trivino, Natalie
Copyright Year	2018
Abstract	Flooding hazards are common in the Colorado Front Range due to the steep, complex terrain of the mountains where waters quickly spill out onto the most populated region of Colorado. This region has experienced numerous catastrophic floods, such as the 2013 Front Range Floods, the Fort Collins Flood of 1997, and the Big Thompson Canyon Flood of 1976 to name a few. The objective of this study was to analyze basin morphometric characteristics of several drainage basins throughout the Colorado Front Range South Platte River tributaries and determine how these characteristics relate to extreme flooding. This was done through three parts: 1) data collection on prior maximum flood magnitudes through a historic and field-based paleoflood analysis; 2) a morphometric terrain analysis with ArcGIS to delineate basin characteristics such as area, shape, slope, relief, and stream characteristics; and 3) a statistical analysis to determine correlations. Results indicate that drainage area under 2,300 meters elevation, total drainage area, area of basin with slopes greater than 30 percent, total stream length, number of streams, basin magnitude, basin length, basin perimeter, relief ratio, basin relief, and basin orientation are the most important characteristics driving flood magnitudes.
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2427&context=etd
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article