SUNY Plattsburgh Hosts International Event on Flood Management

Nearly 100 researchers, planners and decision makers from New York, Vermont and Quebec will gather at the State University of New York (SUNY) Plattsburgh for three days of flood management presentations, planning, and a response simulation during the bi-annual Lake Champlain/Richelieu River Study Board conference October 10-12.

Dr. Curt Gervich, associate professor in the Center for Earth and Environmental Science and co-leader on the board, has been working on a project for the past 18 months with the International Joint Commission – an agency established between Canada and the United States in 1909 by the Boundary Waters Treaty – to identify flood management and mitigation techniques that will help alleviate the impact of more frequent and severe floods along our shared lake and river.

“The purpose of the project is to research and assess the various options for flood prevention, preparation, mitigation and management in the LCRR basin,” Gervich said. “The group is developing protocols for flood forecasting, identifying hot spots for emergency managers, research tools for slowing, holding and diverting water – really, any and all options to reduce the impacts of the two flooding events of 2011.”

The five-year study will result in a report that will be submitted to the International Joint Commission in 2021.

The planners, researchers and government personnel come from state, federal and provincial agencies such as the state Departments of Environmental Conversation, Environment Quebec, the International Joint Commission, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and universities in Quebec, New York and Vermont – SUNY Plattsburgh, the University of Vermont, McGill and Laval universities in Quebec.