The primary purpose of this study is to define various flood hazards for Boulder Creek over a 7-mile reach through the City of Boulder and a portion of unincorporated Boulder County, including nearly 6 miles of 25 distributary flow paths along adjacent drainage corridors and city streets.
The primary purpose of this study was to define various flood hazards for Boulder Creek over a 7-mile reach through the City of Boulder and a portion of unincorporated Boulder County, including nearly 6 miles of 25 distributary flow paths along adjacent drainage corridors and city streets. Also, the 100-year floodplain was defined for a 1.7-mile reach of Boulder Slough along its entire length between Boulder Creek and Goose Creek within the City of Boulder. This project included the following specific tasks:
- field reconnaissance efforts to identify potential surveying requirements, characterize channel and overbank conditions and roughness coefficients, and to visually evaluate 30 bridges along Boulder Creek and distributary flow paths, and 23 bridges/culverts along Boulder Slough, including several irrigation diversion structures and other hydraulic structures;
- field surveying of 30 bridges along Boulder Creek and distributary flow paths, and 23 bridges/culverts along Boulder Slough, including several irrigation diversion structures, numerous other hydraulic structures and channel cross sections, the 1,800-foot long pipe system along Boulder Slough, and topographic surveys of numerous sites throughout the Boulder Creek and Boulder Slough floodplains;
- hydrologic evaluation and modeling for the Boulder Creek watershed to review the original U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Storm Water Management Models (SWMM) and supporting documentation, along with utilizing the various USACE SWMM models to recreate the 100-year hydrologic model on which the effective Boulder Creek hydraulic model is based;
- development of six hydraulic (HEC-RAS) models for Boulder Creek and one HEC-RAS model for Boulder Slough through the use of HEC-GeoRAS in conjunction with a LIDAR-based TIN supplemented with large volumes of field survey data;
- hydraulic modeling for Boulder Creek included the 10-, 25-, 50-, 100- and 500-year events, the City-defined conveyance zone (½-foot rise floodway), and high hazard zone (Product 4 Corridor) , utilizing numerous junctions and lateral weirs to define 18 distributary flow paths for a total modeling reach length of 12.4 miles;
- flood hazard mapping along Boulder Creek of the 10-, 25-, 50-, 100- and 500-year floodplains, the conveyance zone and high hazard zone, mapping of the 100-year floodplain along Boulder Slough, and the preparation of the digital flood hazard work maps using HEC-GeoRAS, and ACE’s automated mapping tools;
- two-dimensional modeling (using FLO-2D) of a 3-mile reach of Boulder Creek and the adjacent floodplain through downtown Boulder to verify the results of the one-dimension analyses;
- development of the graphical flood profiles, tables, and text providing detailed documentation of the study for incorporation into the Boulder County Flood Insurance Study (FIS) ;
- development of an ActionScript-based computer program/tool for defining the High Hazard Zone for the City of Boulder, including an instructional video and detailed user information;
- preparation of floodplain and floodway information in DFIRM format for inclusion in the Boulder County DFIRM, as well as the preparation of reports, information, documentation, and the GIS database required for the Technical Support Data Notebook (TSDN) ; and
- supporting the City of Boulder through the public education and review process.
All work completed for this study was conducted in accordance with the requirements identified in the Map Modernization Guidelines and Specifications for Flood Hazard Mapping Partners [FEMA, April 2003].