Water Stewardship Information Sources
| Citation | BC Forest Practices Board. 2005. Managing landslide risk from forest practices in British Columbia. BC Forest Practices Board. FPB/SIR/14. |
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| Organization | BC Forest Practices Board |
| URL | https://www.bcfpb.ca/sites/default/files/reports/SIR14.pdf |
| Abstract/Description or Keywords | Landslides are a common natural process in a mountainous province like British Columbia. The frequency of landslides can be increased by forest harvesting and road building on steep slopes. Usually, landslides are triggered by extreme rainfall events; this was certainly the case in the summer of 1997 when record rainfall over a two‐month period in the Salmon Arm area triggered a number of natural and forestry‐related landslides. One of these events was a massive debris flow down Hummingbird Creek, near Sicamous, which caused over 3 million dollars damage to public and private property. Hummingbird Creek is a prime example of the damage landslides can cause. Landslide reduction was one of the major objectives of the 1995 BC Forest Practices Code (the Code). The Code established procedures for professional landslide hazard mapping, site assessment and road engineering procedures to reduce the incidence of landslides associated with forest practices. There is a general assumption that the Code successfully reduced the number of landslides, and that professional assessments were a key part of this success, but to date there has been no evidence to support these assertions. To address this gap, the Board examined the management of landslide‐prone terrain in three areas, two on the Coast and one in the Interior, through evaluation of landslide rates and review of terrain stability mapping and terrain stability assessments. The objectives of this study are to report on: 1. The incidence and trends of forestry‐related landslides and the extent of damage to the environment. 2. The adequacy of terrain stability mapping and assessments. 3. The lessons learned in applying this information to the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA) environment. How the Study was Done Airphoto and satellite imagery was used to examine landslide occurrence in Code cutblocks and roads from two areas on Vancouver Island (Kyuquot and Gordon River) and one area in the BC interior (Revelstoke). The terrain stability map hazard rating and the terrain stability field assessment (TSFA) for each cutblock were compared to operational planning documents and to actual landslide occurrence. The comprehensiveness of the TSFA reports was assessed. |
| Information Type | report |
| Regional Watershed | Vancouver Island South |
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| Project status | complete |
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