Debris Flow Fans Debris flow fans occur where strongly episodic sediment transport is triggered by collapse of an accumulation

of weathered rock, soil, or sediment in a steep source region or by concentration of flow onto a steep accumulation of sediment that is then trenched rapidly in such a way that a high sediment concentration is developed with a mixture of sizes, including a significant proportion of fine sediment. The sediment-water ratio of the mixture must be so high that the flowing debris has a low permeability and water cannot drain out (upward) quickly enough to allow the water to separate from the sediment and the sediment to settle onto the bed. The resulting poorly sorted slurry is dense and highly viscous and travels as a laminar flow except where agitated by waterfalls and cascades, by larger rocks in the bed, or by engineering structures. Observers often describe such flows as looking like wet concrete. Flows with intermediate sediment-water ratios and characteristics between those of debris flows and turbid water flows are sometimes referred to as hyperconcentrated flows. Debris flows consist of the full range of sediment sizes supplied from the source area, and flows generated from rocks of different types within the source basin may contain different proportions of clay. The greater the proportion of fines, the greater is the internal strength of the flow because of "cohesive" bonding caused by electrical charges shared between clays and water films. Some flows are sufficiently dense and viscous to transport boulders; others leave the largest boulders behind. As the sediment-water ratio decreases (i.e., in more dilute flows), progressively smaller boulders settle to the bed and are deposited or transported as traction load in a turbulent flow. The flow properties of the slurries determine the fate of the debris flows when they emerge onto the fan, the nature of sediment deposition, and the resulting morphology of the deposit. These properties depend on the magnitude of the discharge and the rheological properties of the debris, which in turn are controlled by its sediment-water ratio and clay content. Discharge rate, clay content, and sediment-water ratio of each debris flow are set by the generating mechanism and the particular combination of circumstances that trigger the flow. For example, a large rainstorm or snowmelt may generate landslides that fall into stream channels containing significant discharge, and the resulting mixture may produce a dilute debris flow. Collapse of wet debris into a steep channel network that already contains a large volume of fallen debris from centuries of slow mass-wasting on adjacent hillslopes may result in scour of that accumulation into a particularly dense and viscous, boulder-charged debris flow. The volumes and peak flow rates of debris flows depend on (1) the magnitude of the water supplied from a rainstorm, snowmelt, lake outburst, or volcanic eruption, and (2) the volume of loose debris that is available to be liquefied by this water during the initial collapse, undermining and assimilation, or scour from the valley floor along the steep portion of the debris flow track. Thus, the debris flows that supply and mold any one fan have a probability distribution of discharges and rheological properties, which determine the nature and magnitude of flood risk.

Fortunately, these aspects of flood risk can be read from the morphology of the fan and its source basin. The range of rheological properties among debris flows emanating from the source valley usually accounts for differences in morphology on different parts of a single debris flow fan. Flows with the highest sediment-water ratios and therefore the greatest strength come to rest on relatively steep gradients (typically 6 to 8 degrees) on the upper parts of the fan in the form of bouldery snouts and levees. These deposits block channels scoured by water floods between debris flow episodes and divert later flows of water or debris into new channels. The result is a topographically rough surface of berms, lobes, and bouldery channel blockages on the upper parts of debris flow fans (Figure 2-5). Somewhat more dilute and weaker flows travel through the steepest channel reaches, but deposit bouldery levees as their margins are slowed. If the peak discharge rate of a debris flow exceeds the conveyance capacity of the channel, its upper part is partially decanted overbank and it travels some distance across the fan surface until it becomes slow enough and thin enough to stop as a bouldery or gravelly sheet with a sharp edge. Stranding of boulders in levees and overbank sheets causes a progressive downfan reduction in the boulder content of flow deposits. The most dilute and weakest debris flows remain channelized as far as the lower parts of the fans, where gradients may be as low as 2 to 3 degrees. Some of these flows halt within the channel, raising its bed and lowering its depth, while others spread over the banks onto the surface of the fan as the declining gradient reduces the conveyance capacity of the channel, forcing flow overbank. The result is a smooth surface with only an occasional boulder on the lower parts of a debris flow fan. On debris flow fans, streams are often confined to nondiverging, boulder-lined channels left by the debris flows, and therefore they neither shift across the fan nor overtop the banks in most cases, except on the lower parts of the fan where shallow channels were originally formed by the dilute, low-viscosity flows described above. Of course, if the debris lining the channels is gravelly rather than bouldery, the capacity for channel shifting and eventual realignment by water floods is greater. Many channels on debris flow fans are single-thread depressions blocked at their upper ends by bouldery accumulations, so they are never invaded by stream floods or debris flows. Like alluvial fans, debris flow fans are subject to varying amounts of deposition and parts or even much of the fan may be inactive under the present climate. For example, the debris flow fans emanating from the east side of the Sierra Nevada in the northwestern part of Owens Valley have more or less ceased to accumulate since the end of the last glaciation in the mountains, and the oldest parts of the fans date from previous glaciations. Parts of fans debouching from the unglaciated southern Sierra and from the White Mountains on the western side of Owens Valley continue to receive debris flows in the modern climate. Descriptions of large debris flow fans in Owens Valley, California, are provided by Whipple and Dunne (1992), and smaller debris flow fans in a wetter environment are described by Kellerhals and Church (1990). One approach to flood risk on debris flow fans concludes that even on active fans the probability of a debris flow is less than 1 percent in any one year, and therefore the "100-year

flood" is not a debris flow but a runoff event. This is a generalization that fails to appreciate an important aspect of debris flow initiation, namely, that it is not an independent, random event in the same way that runoff floods are assumed to be. Debris accumulates in source localities and along stream channels over timescales from decades to centuries between failures that evacuate the debris (Benda and Dunne, 1987; Dunne, 1991; Reneau and Dietrich, 1991). Thus, a frequency count of dated debris flows in a region might indicate that the average frequency of occurrence is, say, 200 years per fan (with a probability of occurrence in any one year of 0.5 percent). However, if a geologist were to walk up any one of the source basins, he or she might find many potential failure sites and the channels below them to be occupied by thick layers of sediment that have accumulated since the previous debris flow occurred centuries earlier. In a neighboring valley, recent debris flows may have stripped such sediment from the valley and reset the clock so that the probability of debris flow is virtually zero for the foreseeable future. Thus flood risk estimates can be refined by first recognizing from field evidence that debris flows are the dominant sediment transporting agent on a particular fan and then examining the source basin to determine whether debris availability favors an enhanced risk of a debris flow in the event of a large rainstorm or snowmelt.