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Floods & Clear-Cut Logging Red Flag

  • Writer: FTFO
    FTFO
  • 2 days ago
  • 2 min read

New study finds clear‑cut logging can dramatically increase flood risk

Published: July 6, 2026 12.11pm EDT


The ability of the forests to mitigate or heighten flood risk depends greatly on how logging takes place across an area. (Peter Robbins/Unsplash)
The ability of the forests to mitigate or heighten flood risk depends greatly on how logging takes place across an area. (Peter Robbins/Unsplash)

In September 2025 Dr. Younes Alila came to Penticton with Daniel Pearce, the director of Trouble in the Headwaters, a documentary of the cause of the Grand Forks floods. Dr. Alila is a hydrologist at UBC and travelled over 20,000 sq km to find the headwaters of Kettle River and discover the source of the floods - clear-cut logged blocks.


Right now, the Okanagan Valley is at Drought Level 4 https://droughtportal.gov.bc.ca/

The reason for drought is also directly correlated to clear-cut logging and the inability of the soil to retain water when there are no trees to hold snow and rain, and damage biodiversity unable to create a healthy system. This year saw the Valley in drought conditions all through winter - a rare and troubling situation.


The Conversation just published an article by Dr. Alila, Xu Jian (Joe) Yu and Spencer Pearson-Atkins of UBC on their recent report in Science Direct.


Excerpt:

In the past 30 years, floods have affected more than 2.8 billion people worldwide and caused over 500,000 deaths. In Canada, flooding has caused significant damage and disruption to communities across the country. The 2021 floods in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley cost an estimated $14 billion in damages.


Human activity that changes landscapes can make floods larger and more frequent. Our recently published study shows that clear-cut logging can dramatically increase flood risk, turning what was once a 50-year event into a flood recurring every three years, with the largest and rarest floods showing the greatest sensitivity to forest disturbance.


We studied a watershed on the west shore of Lake Okanagan near Summerland, British Columbia. Around 40 per cent of the site experienced logging. This watershed is no exception, as B.C.’s landscape has become dominated by clear-cut logging.

We found that, without logging, flood risk due to reduced snow melt was decreasing. But after logging, this was reversed, leading to significant upward trend in flood risk.





 
 
 

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