Reconstructing peak discharges for historic flood levels in the city of Cologne, Germany

Herget, Jürgen; Meurs, Hendrik

doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2009.11.011

Cited by 79 publications

(148 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The ability to reconstruct peak discharges for past floods, based on epigraphic and other documentary sources, represents an important development in incorporating historical information into flood change analyses (e.g. Herget and Meurs, 2010;Elleder et al, 2013).…”

Section: Going Beyond Trend Analysis Of Floodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding flood regime changes in Europe: a state-of-the-art assessment

Hall

Arheimer

Borga

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

467

335

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Abstract. There is growing concern that flooding is becoming more frequent and severe in Europe. A better understanding of flood regime changes and their drivers is therefore needed. The paper reviews the current knowledge on flood regime changes in European rivers that has traditionally been obtained through two alternative research approaches. The first approach is the data-based detection of changes in observed flood events. Current methods are reviewed together with their challenges and opportunities. For example, observation biases, the merging of different data sources and accounting for nonlinear drivers and responses. The second approach consists of modelled scenarios of future floods. Challenges and opportunities associated with flood change scenarios are discussed such as fully accounting for uncertainties in the modelling cascade and feedbacks. To make progress in flood change research, we suggest that a synthesis of these two approaches is needed. This can be achieved by focusing on long duration records and flood-rich and flood-poor periods rather than on short duration flood trends only, by formally attributing causes of observed flood changes, by validating scenarios against observed flood regime dynamics, and by developing low-dimensional models of flood changes and feedbacks. The paper finishes with a call for a joint European flood change research network.

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Section: Going Beyond Trend Analysis Of Floodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding flood regime changes in Europe: a state-of-the-art assessment

Hall

Arheimer

Borga

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

467

335

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Table 1 shows a compilation of 46 case studies with historical discharge estimates at sites with multiple floods with discharge estimates published in peer review papers or being cross-checked with the original historical sources. Numerous studies suggest that current flood magnitudes are not unusual within the context of last 1000 years, with good examples for the rivers Rhine (Herget and Meurs, 2010;Wetter et al, 2011), Tiber (Calenda et al, 2005), Llobregat (Thorndycraft et al, 2005), Trent (Macdonald, 2013) and Gardon (Sheffer et al, 2008;Neppel et al, 2010). In general, the largest historical floods from the last 500 years show higher peak flows than the largest gauged floods (Fig.…”

Section: Discharge Of Historical Floods In the Context Of Instrumentamentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The uncertainty on the estimation of roughness and of hydraulic geometry is introduced as different scenarios based on varying assumptions considered. Herget and Meurs (2010) applied this method to the 1374 flood of the River Rhine in Cologne, the highest in the local record. The calculated discharge was validated by application of this equation to recent floods and comparison of results with nearby cross sections.…”

Section: Discharge Estimation From Documentary Recordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitative historical hydrology in Europe

Benito

Brázdil

Herget

et al. 2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. In recent decades, the quantification of flood hydrological characteristics (peak discharge, hydrograph shape, and runoff volume) from documentary evidence has gained scientific recognition as a method to lengthen flood records of rare and extreme events. This paper describes the methodological evolution of quantitative historical hydrology under the influence of developments in hydraulics and statistics. In the 19th century, discharge calculations based on flood marks were the only source of hydrological data for engineering design, but were later left aside in favour of systematic gauge records and conventional hydrological procedures. In the last two decades, there has been growing scientific and public interest in understanding long-term patterns of rare floods, in maintaining the flood heritage and memory of extremes, and developing methods for deterministic and statistical application to different scientific and engineering problems. A compilation of 46 case studies across Europe with reconstructed discharges demonstrates that (1) in most cases present flood magnitudes are not unusual within the context of the last millennium, although recent floods may exceed past floods in some temperate European rivers (e.g. the Vltava and Po rivers); (2) the frequency of extreme floods has decreased since the 1950s, although some rivers (e.g. the Gardon and Ouse rivers) show a reactivation of rare events over the last two decades. There is a great potential for gaining understanding of individual extreme events based on a combined multiproxy approach (palaeoflood and documentary records) providing high-resolution time flood series and their environmental and climatic changes; and for developing non-systematic and non-stationary statistical models based on relations of past floods with external and internal covariates under natural low-frequency climate variability.

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“…The quantitative approach is based on mathematical or numerical one-dimensional to three-dimensional techniques for flow simulation in natural rivers and channels, based on different types of topographical, geomorphological, and hydraulic data (Cunge et al, 1980;Herget and Meurs, 2010;Ortega and Garzón, 2009;. The basic purpose is to quantify the peak water height, the discharge yield and/or the submerged area during a selected flood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This approach has two main purposes: (a) to obtain data concerning rivers or torrents that lack instrumental data; and (b) to expand the observation period of instrumented rivers to the pre-measurement epoch, to improve the assessment of flood recurrence and trend Herget and Meurs, 2010;Schmocker-Fackel and Naef, 2010). In cases where the river flow is extremely variable, discontinuous or sporadic, as widely observed in many Mediterranean areas and other world regions, the time series of river discharge yield or water height are generally unavailable for long periods and/or large areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The occurrence of floods and the role of climate variations from 1880 in Calabria (Southern Italy)

Polemio

Petrucci

2012

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. In this paper, we present a methodological approach based on a comparative analysis of floods that occurred in a wide region over a long period and the climatic data characterising the same period, focusing on the climate trend. The method simplifies the comparative analysis of several time series by defining some indexes (e.g. the monthly, bi-monthly, and . . . m-monthly indexes of precipitation, temperature, wet days and precipitation intensity and the monthly flood number) that can be used to study phenomena such as floods that are characterised by spatial and temporal variability. The analysis was used to investigate the potential effect of climate variation on the damaging floods trend.The approach was tested for the Calabria region (Italy) using historical flood and climatic data from 1880 to 2007. The results showed that the number of floods was correlated with the monthly indexes of precipitation, wet days, and daily precipitation intensity. The following trends were recognised: decreasing precipitation and wet days, almost constant precipitation intensity, increasing temperature, and linearly increasing floods. A second-order polynomial trend analysis showed a slight decrease in floods since the seventies, which might be explained by the favourable climatic conditions during the period and/or the effect of increasing awareness of flood vulnerability.

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Reconstructing peak discharges for historic flood levels in the city of Cologne, Germany

Cited by 79 publications

References 16 publications

Understanding flood regime changes in Europe: a state-of-the-art assessment

Understanding flood regime changes in Europe: a state-of-the-art assessment

Quantitative historical hydrology in Europe

The occurrence of floods and the role of climate variations from 1880 in Calabria (Southern Italy)

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