Please cite this article as: Madsen, H., Lawrence, D., Lang, M., Martinkova, M., Kjeldsen, T.R., Review of trend analysis and climate change projections of extreme precipitation and floods in Abstract This paper presents a review of trend analysis of extreme precipitation and hydrological floods in Europe based on observations and future climate projections. The review summaries methods and methodologies applied and key findings from a large number of studies. Reported analyses of observed extreme precipitation and flood records show that there is some evidence of a general increase in extreme precipitation, whereas there are no clear indications of significant trends at large-scale regional or national level of extreme streamflow. Several studies from regions dominated by snowmelt-induced peak flows report decreases in extreme streamflow and earlier spring snowmelt peak flows, likely caused by increasing temperature. The review of likely future changes based on climate projections indicates a general increase in extreme precipitation under a future climate, which is consistent with the observed trends. Hydrological projections of peak flows show large impacts in many areas with both positive and negative changes. A general decrease in flood magnitude and earlier spring floods are projected for catchments with snowmelt-dominated peak flows, which is consistent with the observed trends.Finally, existing guidelines in Europe on design flood and design rainfall estimation are reviewed. The review shows that only few countries have developed guidelines that incorporate a consideration of climate change impacts.
Lawrence argued that the inundation ratio Λ, defined as the mean flow depth d divided by the roughness height k, is the dominant control of flow resistance f and should be used as the primary variable when evaluating the hydraulics of overland flow on rough surfaces. Lawrence defined three flow regimes on the basis of Λ and developed an expression for f in terms of Λ for each regime. Common sense, however, suggests that f is independent of Λ where Λ<1 because when roughness elements protrude through the flow, the value of f for the flow is the same regardless of the height of the elements. The error appears to have crept in as a result of Lawrence's representation of roughness elements by hemispheres. Lawrence found that f ∝ d/k, which she interpreted to mean f ∝Λ.
Abstract. Information on extreme precipitation for future climate is needed to assess the changes in the frequency and intensity of flooding. The primary source of information in climate change impact studies is climate model projections. However, due to the coarse resolution and biases of these models, they cannot be directly used in hydrological models. Hence, statistical downscaling is necessary to address climate change impacts at the catchment scale. This study compares eight statistical downscaling methods (SDMs) often used in climate change impact studies. Four methods are based on change factors (CFs), three are bias correction (BC) methods, and one is a perfect prognosis method. The eight methods are used to downscale precipitation output from 15 regional climate models (RCMs) from the ENSEMBLES project for 11 catchments in Europe. The overall results point to an increase in extreme precipitation in most catchments in both winter and summer. For individual catchments, the downscaled time series tend to agree on the direction of the change but differ in the magnitude. Differences between the SDMs vary between the catchments and depend on the season analysed. Similarly, general conclusions cannot be drawn regarding the differences between CFs and BC methods. The performance of the BC methods during the control period also depends on the catchment, but in most cases they represent an improvement compared to RCM outputs. Analysis of the variance in the ensemble of RCMs and SDMs indicates that at least 30% and up to approximately half of the total variance is derived from the SDMs. This study illustrates the large variability in the expected changes in extreme precipitation and highlights the need for considering an ensemble of both SDMs and climate models. Recommendations are provided for the selection of the most suitable SDMs to include in the analysis.
Abstract. Hydraulic resistance as a function of surface roughness inundation was evaluated in a set of experiments designed to simulate overland flow on a rough, granular surface. The data are compared with an additive drag model based on the contribution of individual elements to flow resistance and a mixing length model for estimating bulk flow resistance. During partial inundation of the surface roughness the observed coefficient of drag per element is much higher than for an isolated element, and a model based on element form drag alone underestimates the observed friction. These high resistance values are strongly correlated with the hydrostatic wave drag estimated from the free surface deformation around elements. The mixing length model, incorporating a multiplier setting the hydraulically effective roughness height, reliably reproduces the trends in resistance during marginal inundation. This multiplier is shown to have a value similar to the root-mean-square of the surface height. IntroductionOverland flow is an important mechanism for the surface transport of particulate and dissolved nutrients and contaminants and contributes to surface erosion and, potentially, land degradation in environments where it is an active runoff process. Many physically based and quasi-empirical methods designed to assess transport and erosion processes assume that overland flow hydraulics are well understood and can be readily characterized in terms of simple resistance models. This is, however, not generally the case. During a single storm event, overland flow hydraulics are quite complex because of, in part, the varying contribution of boundary roughness to total flow resistance as a surface is progressively inundated. In many cases, the surface will only be partially or marginally inundated, so that the roughness disrupts the flow throughout its depth and classical boundary layer theory cannot be invoked to model the flow. The moderate Reynolds number of these flows (often of order 100-10, 000) introduces significant variability in the occurrence and interaction of wakes behind roughness elements and, for the case ofRe • 500, further invalidates the assumptions underlying boundary layer approximations. The pronounced distortion of the free surface around and over roughness elements is difficult to model hydrodynamically and also hinders the development of alternative approximate models based on the momentum balance equations. Each of these physical factors may have a significant effect on transport, mixing, and dispersion in the flow as well as on the most suitable form of a hydraulic approximation for characterizing mean flow behavior.Hydraulic approximations are used to estimate mean flow velocity and depth for a given specific discharge over a surface of known roughness. They are required when hydrodynamic modeling is either unfeasible or the data for it are not avail-
Abstract. Climate change is likely to impact the seasonality and generation processes of floods in the Nordic countries, which has direct implications for flood risk assessment, design flood estimation, and hydropower production management. Using a multi-model/multi-parameter approach to simulate daily discharge for a reference ) and a future (2071-2099) period, we analysed the projected changes in flood seasonality and generation processes in six catchments with mixed snowmelt/rainfall regimes under the current climate in Norway. The multi-model/multi-parameter ensemble consists of (i) eight combinations of global and regional climate models, (ii) two methods for adjusting the climate model output to the catchment scale, and (iii) one conceptual hydrological model with 25 calibrated parameter sets. Results indicate that autumn/winter events become more frequent in all catchments considered, which leads to an intensification of the current autumn/winter flood regime for the coastal catchments, a reduction of the dominance of spring/summer flood regimes in a high-mountain catchment, and a possible systematic shift in the current flood regimes from spring/summer to autumn/winter in the two catchments located in northern and south-eastern Norway. The changes in flood regimes result from increasing event magnitudes or frequencies, or a combination of both during autumn and winter. Changes towards more dominant autumn/winter events correspond to an increasing relevance of rainfall as a flood generating process (FGP) which is most pronounced in those catchments with the largest shifts in flood seasonality. Here, rainfall replaces snowmelt as the dominant FGP primarily due to increasing temperature. We further analysed the ensemble components in contributing to overall uncertainty in the projected changes and found that the climate projections and the methods for downscaling or bias correction tend to be the largest contributors. The relative role of hydrological parameter uncertainty, however, is highest for those catchments showing the largest changes in flood seasonality, which confirms the lack of robustness in hydrological model parameterization for simulations under transient hydrometeorological conditions.
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