Convening for Action in British Columbia

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forest hydrology

    DOWNLOAD A COPY OF: “Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Increased frequency, magnitude, duration and LIABILITY of floods” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in October 2025


    “In 2018, I happened to read a report which quoted a paper by Younes Alila. So I started reading more of his work. This is significant, I thought, because lives have been lost and billions of dollars in infrastructure damage has happened. And nobody seems to care. Here we have a UBC professor of hydrology who has completely changed how forest hydrology is looked at now. And he has determined that we have been using the wrong methods to determine the prescription outcomes from forest harvesting practices. Yet we are still continuing to do the same thing,” stated Mike Morris.

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    INCREASED FREQUENCY, MAGNITUDE, DURATION AND LIABILITY OF FLOODS: “I landed on this discovery that the old experimental design is not fit and produces irrelevant outcomes when it comes to floods, landslides, and droughts,” stated Dr. Younes Alila, professional engineer and professor in the UBC Faculty of Forestry


    “Climate change scientists have always been overly consumed with extremes. The probabilistic framework has guided them since the mid-1980s. It has evolved into what they now refer to as attribution science. It has been developed aggressively by climate change scientists. That new framework is PROBABLISTIC in nature. It uses the frequency of extremes to tell you the extent to which the atmospheric rivers of November 2021 resulted in over $17 billion of damage due to human influence. Independently, I have been developing that same framework,” stated Younes Alila.

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    DOWNLOAD A COPY OF: “Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Landscapes and watersheds in BC are at a heightened risk” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in May 2024


    “The story of my forest hydrology research over the past 30 years is actually a traumatizing story. Most of the landscapes in British Columbia and most of our watersheds are sitting at a very heightened risk when it comes to hydrology and geomorphology. The risks are greater than we were led to believe by government, industry, and professionals. But scholars in the philosophy of science will tell you that scientists will never admit to erroneous precedents. An eminent scientist once said, science progresses one funeral at a time,” stated Dr. Younes Alila.

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    LANDSCAPES AND WATERSHEDS IN BC ARE AT A HEIGHTENED RISK: “Younes Alila is in the news because he is raising the alarm. His message boils down to RISK AND LIABILITY. The actual consequences of clearcut logging, he warns, are magnified in this era of weather extremes,” stated Kim Stephens


    “UBC forestry professor Dr. Younes Alila is courageous in challenging conventional wisdom about what he believes to be the misguided and scientifically indefensible practice of forest hydrology in BC. His findings are relevant to urban drainage practice. Trained as a civil engineer, Younes Alila found himself having to do science. In the process, he landed on a discovery of great import. Research by Younes Alila and his grad students over the past three decades demonstrates how clearcut logging leads to more frequent flooding, including extreme floods,” stated Younes Alila.

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