Hydrometeorological reconstruction of the 1824 flood event in the Neckar River basin (southwest Germany)

Abstract

The integration of extreme historical floods in contemporary flood protection contributes towards improved risk management and safer handling of floods in the future. As a case study within the "Xfloods" project at the University of Freiburg (Germany), the discharges of the extreme flood in 1824 in the Neckar River basin (Baden-Württemberg/southwest Germany) were reconstructed using historical data. Quantitative and qualitative historical sources were applied to model the regional atmospheric circulation pattern, the weather conditions and the precipitation distribution associated with the event. Discharges were simulated using the water-balance model LARSIM (Large Area Runoff Simulation Model), the operational flood forecasting model in Baden-Württemberg. The developed methodology shows potential for wider use in assessing extreme historical floods and for application to contemporary flood management.Reconstitution hydro-météorologique de la crue 1824 dans le bassin du Neckar (sud-ouest de l'Allemagne) Résumé L'intégration des crues historiques dans la prévention actuelle des risques d'inondation contribue à établir une meilleure estimation des risques et à faire un traitement plus sûr des futures crues. La crue extrême de 1824 dans le bassin du Neckar (Bade-Wurtemberg/sud-ouest de l'Allemagne) a été reconstituée en exploitant les informations des sources historiques en tant qu'étude de cas pour le projet "Xfloods" mené à l'Université de Freiburg (Allemagne). Des sources historiques quantitatives et qualitatives ont été utilisées pour modéliser la circulation atmosphérique à grande échelle spatiale, ainsi que la situation météorologique et la distribution des précipitations qui ont causé cet événement. Les écoulements ont été alors simulés en utilisant le modèle hydrologique LARSIM, qui est le modèle opérationnel de la prédiction des crues au Bade-Wurtemberg. La méthode développée montre un potentiel pour une utilisation plus importante en vue d'évaluer les crues historiques extrêmes et pour son application à la gestion contemporaine des risques d'inondation.

Potential of historical meteorological and hydrological data for the reconstruction of historical flood events – the example of the 1882 flood in southwest Germany

“…Several studies (e.g. Bürger et al, 2006;Haag et al, 2005;Ott and Uhlenbrook, 2004;Bronstert et al, 2003) have shown that on large scales land use influences on discharge values during advective hydrometeorological extreme events are relatively small. Therefore, the historical land use from 1882 was not considered for the LARSIM simulation.…”

“…The combination of rainfall and snow melt led to devastating floods, especially in tributaries of the Rhine River. In some parts of the Neckar catchment, the water levels were only exceeded by the extreme flood event in 1824 (Bürger et al, 2006).…”

“…Seidel (jochen.seidel@iws.uni-stuttgart.de) the Elbe flood of 2002, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) founded the national research programme "Risk Management of Extreme Flood Events" (RIMAX) to avoid or limit the adverse impact of floods in Germany (Merz and Didszun, 2005). The research project Xfloods -"Analysis of Historical Floods for a Preventive Risk Management of Extreme Floods" -at the University of Freiburg was part of this initiative from [2005][2006][2007], focusing on historical extreme floods in southwest Germany (Bürger et al, 2006). Information from historical documents has a great potential for the reconstruction of floods in the past and can be informative for contemporary flood risk management (Lobanova, 2002;Thorndycraft et al, 2002).…”

Analysis of Historical River Floods - A Contribution Towards Modern Flood Risk Management

“…A detailed overview of the collected and analysed data was given by Seidel et al (2009), Bürger et al (2006, Sudhaus et al (2008), Dostal et al (2007) and Straub (2007). The main difference between the datasets of 1824 and 1882 is the different quantity and quality of the meteorological measurements.…”

“…Schübler has published the daily precipitation amounts from five meteorological stations for the extreme flood event at the end of October and the beginning of November 1824 (Schübler, 1825). These data are still only fractional or unpublished and were firstly used by Bürger et al (2006). The location of the sites with meteorological measurements in 1824 is depicted in Figure 2 .…”