Ice-jam floods (IJFs) are important hydrological and hydraulic events in the northern hemisphere that are of major concern for citizens, authorities, insurance companies and government agencies. In recent years, there have been advances in assessing and quantifying climate change impacts on river ice processes, however, an understanding of climate change and regulation impacts on the timing and magnitude of IJFs remains limited. This study presents a global overview of IJF case studies and discusses IJF risks in North America, one of the most IJF prone regions according to literature. Then an assessment of shifts in the timing and magnitude of IJFs in Canada is presented analyzing flow data from 1107 hydrometric stations across Canada for the period from 1903 to 2015. The analyses show clear signals of climate change and regulation impacts in the timing and magnitude of IJFs, particularly in small basins.

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Abstract. The St. Denis National Wildlife Area is located in the seasonally frozen and semi-arid Canadian Prairies, close to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The site has a hummocky terrain and is underlain by clay-rich glacial tills. Though the site is only 4 km2 it contains hundreds of wetlands containing ponds which range in size, in permanence (from ephemeral to permanent), and in their interactions with groundwater (recharge and discharge ponds are present). The site was established as a research area in 1968 and has long-term records of hydrological observations, including meteorological, snow, soil moisture, surface water (ponds) and groundwater data. Some records, notably the pond level and chemistry data, span the period 1968 to present. Other datasets, notably water level observations from networks of piezometers, have been collected sporadically at different locations and times. Some datasets are collected manually on an annual basis, including pond surveys and snow surveys. Meteorological data have been collected by automatic weather stations since 1989 and have been maintained and upgraded over time, with a flux tower added to the site in 2011. Automatically logged soil moisture profiles and collocated piezometers have been running since 2013. A lidar survey from 2005 provides a 1 m resolution digital elevation map (DEM) of the site and surrounding landscape. The compiled data are available at https://doi.org/10.20383/101.0115 (Bam et al., 2018).