Flood protection as a key-component of the environmental restoration of Canal del Dique, Colombia

Canal del Dique is a man-made distributary of Rio Magdalena. After its widening in 1980’s environmental degradation caused by abundant sediment load and changes to hydrology took a catastrophic form. In 2010, the Canal’s dike breached and 35,000 ha of land were flooded. In 2013 a huge effort to restore the environment in the Canal del Dique system and to flood-proof the villages was started. An integrated approach was adopted to provide an optimal solution for flood control, environment, fresh water supply and navigation. In order to prepare restoration plans, an extensive hydrologic and hydraulic assessment was carried out. 1D, 2D and 3D numerical models were developed to answer different questions, to evaluate different alternatives and to enable selection of optimal solutions. To assess the flood risk, a hindcast of 2010 flood was carried out. A solution was designed in which the inlet of water from the Magdalena River is regulated by a control structure, managed by an automated system based on SCADA and Delft-FEWS flood forecasting software and advanced statistics.