Incorporating climate change in flood estimation guidance

Wasko, Conrad; Westra, Seth; Orr, Harriet G.; Villarini, Gabriele; Herrera, Roberto Villalobos; Fowler, Hayley J.

doi:10.1098/rsta.2019.0548

Cited by 66 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 140 publications

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“…Although some instances exist of translation of current state-of-theart model results into flood design guidance, e.g. [153], this is still in its infancy (see Wasko et al [116] for an extensive review). To increase uptake from decision-makers, we may need to change our current approach to adopt alternative modelling strategies such as storylines [154].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards advancing scientific knowledge of climate change impacts on short-duration rainfall extremes

Fowler

Ali

Allan

et al. 2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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A large number of recent studies have aimed at understanding short-duration rainfall extremes, due to their impacts on flash floods, landslides and debris flows and potential for these to worsen with global warming. This has been led in a concerted international effort by the INTENSE Crosscutting Project of the GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Exchanges) Hydroclimatology Panel. Here, we summarize the main findings so far and suggest future directions for research, including: the benefits of convection-permitting climate modelling; towards understanding mechanisms of change; the usefulness of temperature-scaling relations; towards detecting and attributing extreme rainfall change; and the need for international coordination and collaboration. Evidence suggests that the intensity of long-duration (1 day+) heavy precipitation increases with climate warming close to the Clausius–Clapeyron (CC) rate (6–7% K −1 ), although large-scale circulation changes affect this response regionally. However, rare events can scale at higher rates, and localized heavy short-duration (hourly and sub-hourly) intensities can respond more strongly (e.g. 2 × CC instead of CC). Day-to-day scaling of short-duration intensities supports a higher scaling, with mechanisms proposed for this related to local-scale dynamics of convective storms, but its relevance to climate change is not clear. Uncertainty in changes to precipitation extremes remains and is influenced by many factors, including large-scale circulation, convective storm dynamics andstratification. Despite this, recent research has increased confidence in both the detectability and understanding of changes in various aspects of intense short-duration rainfall. To make further progress, the international coordination of datasets, model experiments and evaluations will be required, with consistent and standardized comparison methods and metrics, and recommendations are made for these frameworks. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes and implications for flash flood risks’.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards advancing scientific knowledge of climate change impacts on short-duration rainfall extremes

Fowler

Ali

Allan

et al. 2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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“…It is largeley accepted that a single 'best estimate' of flood probabilities is not able to capture the epistemic uncertainty [71]. The solution proposed in this paper is to capture the uncertainties in the form of a set of design floods.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design Floods Considering the Epistemic Uncertainty

Drobot¹,

Drăghia²,

Ciuiu³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The design flood concept (DF) provides for an essential tool in designing the hydraulic works, in defining the reservoir operation programs and for a reliable flood hazard identification. Under a simplified approach, the maximum discharge and the floods volume are statistically processed to reasonably define the DF. Yet, the integral hydrograph provides additional key temporal and quantitative details of important significance for flood management and particularly for the res-ervoirs operation and associated risks of failures. The procedure presented in this paper (as applied on a set of compatibly shaped hydrographs) involves the following key stages: (i) normalize the floods, (ii) define similar flood shape classes and (iii) evaluate the average dimensionless flood (ADF) for each class. The ADFs are finally transformed into a set of (DF)s. Many statistical distributions approximate acceptably the frequent values of the maximum discharges or the flood volumes, yet displaying a significant spread for medium or rare probabilities of exceedance (PE). This scattering, which can be explained by the epistemic uncertainty, defines an area of uncertainty both for measured and extrapolated values. In considering upper and lower values of the uncertainty in-tervals as limits for maximum discharges and flood volumes, then by combining them compatibly, a set of DFs - as completely defined hydrographs, with different shapes - results for each PE. The herein proposed procedure defines both one peak DF and multi-peaks DF. Subsequently, such DFs do assist water managers in examining and establishing tailored approaches for a variety of input hydrographs. Among the DFs that would correspond to a same PE, the most compact floods arise a special interest, for they are basic in defining the set of safe operation rules for hydraulic structures.

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“…It is largely accepted that a single "best estimate" of flood probabilities is not able to capture the epistemic uncertainty [72]. The solution proposed in this paper is to capture the uncertainties in the form of a set of design floods.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design Floods Considering the Epistemic Uncertainty

Drobot

Drăghia

Ciuiu

et al. 2021

Water

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The Design Flood (DF) concept is an essential tool in designing hydraulic works, defining reservoir operation programs, and identifying reliable flood hazard maps. The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology for deriving a Design Flood hydrograph considering the epistemic uncertainty. Several appropriately identified statistical distributions allow for the acceptable approximation of the frequent values of maximum discharges or flood volumes, and display a significant spread for their medium/low Probabilities of Exceedance (PE). The referred scattering, as a consequence of epistemic uncertainty, defines an area of uncertainty for both recorded data and extrapolated values. In considering the upper and lower values of the uncertainty intervals as limits for maximum discharges and flood volumes, and by further combining them compatibly, a set of DFs as completely defined hydrographs with different shapes result for each PE. The herein proposed procedure defines both uni-modal and multi-modal DFs. Subsequently, such DFs help water managers in examining and establishing tailored approaches for a variety of input hydrographs, which might be typically generated in river basins.

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Incorporating climate change in flood estimation guidance

Cited by 66 publications

References 140 publications

Towards advancing scientific knowledge of climate change impacts on short-duration rainfall extremes

Towards advancing scientific knowledge of climate change impacts on short-duration rainfall extremes

Design Floods Considering the Epistemic Uncertainty

Design Floods Considering the Epistemic Uncertainty

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