Colorado’s Watershed Flood Recovery 2013-2018

The Takeaways

1. A holistic approach to recovery is key to enhancing resilience.

2. Early and bold visioning and partnership helped create a new model for disaster recovery.

3. Incorporate resiliency into every project to mitigate future damage.

“This was a new way of doing business, we took a different, more holistic approach and we’re excited to see the results on the ground.”

— Kevin Houck, CWCB

The Case Study

In early September 2013, several days of rain caused massive flooding across Colorado’s Front Range communities. Streams reclaimed floodplains, destroyed roads, bridges, and buildings, and ripped vegetation from riverbanks. In total, the floods caused approximately $4 billion in damage. Emergency repairs opened highway corridors but often bulldozed rivers in return -- leaving them in dysfunctional alignments and often with channels that were too small to safely convey normal river flows. Unable to self-repair, the damaged and unstable rivers needed a boost.

Communities came together with encouragement and support from Federal and State partners. Recognizing the impacts of historic encroachment on floodplains and seeing a need to build resilience into the systems, the State took a new, more holistic approach to recovery. The State-sponsored programs focused on five key principles:

1. Complete recovery work on a watershed scale with coordinated project design and sequencing.

2. Support early planning to identify root issues, develop holistic solutions, and allow time to secure appropriate funding.

3. Support watershed coalitions as a model for stakeholder engagement, improved project outcomes, and recovery that crosses jurisdictional boundaries to prioritize river system recovery.

4. Execute projects with multiple objectives, including safety, ecological and environmental benefits, and community and economic development outcomes.

5. Incorporate resiliency into every project to mitigate a similar scale of damage in future events.

Thanks to early and bold visioning and partnership building by the Colorado Water Conservation Board and continued dedication to recovery principles by other partners (i.e., Department of Local Affairs and numerous local and private partners), the recovery of Colorado’s flood-impacted watersheds have created a new model for disaster recovery.

Want more information?

• Check out the Colorado Emergency Watershed Protection Program.

• Read the full Colorado Watershed Flood Recovery report (2013 - 2018).

• Contact the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

---