PEER-REVIEWED SCIENCE
Explore the peer-reviewed science of Dr. Younes Alila and his students and colleagues at the UBC Faculty of Forestry Hydrology Lab.
FRONTIERS IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Managing Extremes in the Anthropocene (2025)
Samadhee Kaluarachchi, Younes Alila
This review explores the rising frequency and severity of hydroclimatic extremes linked to human activities, calling for a shift from magnitude-centric to frequency-centric risk management. It promotes integrating causal and stochastic physics to better assess flood risks and improve adaptation and mitigation strategies in light of changing environmental conditions.
Henry C. Pham, Younes Alila, Peter V. Caldwell
This study investigates the impact of forest treatments on peakflow responses in rain-dominated environments using a stochastic framework. It shows that factors like watershed topography and antecedent moisture conditions significantly affect peakflow magnitude and frequency, indicating that forest treatments can alter flood dynamics without a definitive threshold of effect.
Henry C. Pham, Younes Alila
This review emphasizes the need for a probabilistic approach to understand the effects of forests on flood severity and frequency, contrasting it with traditional deterministic methods. It argues that a causal framework based on flood frequency distributions can clarify how forest disturbances impact hydrological responses, even for larger flood events.
Robbie S.H. Johnson, Younes Alila
The study uses a nonstationary stochastic paired watershed approach to analyze the effects of forest harvesting on snowmelt-generated floods in the Deadman River and Joe Ross Creek watersheds. It concludes that such harvesting significantly increases the frequency and mean of peakflows for both small and large flood events, emphasizing the role of environmental controls and climate variability.
VIDEO PRESENTATIONS
Watch some video presentations by Dr. Younes Alila
Dr. Younes Alila presents to the Interior Watershed Task Force in Kelowna, BC on April 13th, 2024 about his research into clearcut logging and flooding.
Dr. Younes Alila speaks at the Power of Forests tour at UBC in Vancouver, BC on Sept. 21, 2024 about what caused the 2024 Chilcotin River Landslide.
Dr. Younes Alila gives a webinar on May 30, 2023 for the UBC Faculty of Forestry about his new framework for understanding the link between forests and floods.