Seasonality and magnitude of floods in Switzerland under future climate change

Köplin, Nina; Schädler, Bruno; Viviroli, Daniel; Weingartner, Rolf

doi:10.1002/hyp.9757

Cited by 94 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Then, all catchments from the southern side of the Alps were joined in a separate group. The specific precipitation regime (Schmidli and Frei, 2005) and flood seasonality (Köplin et al, 2014) of this group, as well as the specific geology (crystalline, poor infiltration rates, steep slopes, and weak soils) motivated this choice. Aschwanden and Weingartner (1985) called this group "Meridional" to emphasize its southern location.…”

Section: Selection and Classification Of Catchmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Meridional catchments are characterized by a maximum flood frequency in fall and summer and Jurassien catchments by winter floods with rain on snow as a major flood process (see e.g., Piock-Ellena et al, 2000;Köplin et al, 2014).…”

Section: Selection and Classification Of Catchmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Glacial catchments are typically small and located at high elevations, exhibit steep slopes and lack deep soils. They are characterized by very short response times and a large runoff contribution from melt during the flood season (summer, see e.g., Verbunt et al, 2003;Köplin et al, 2014). The negative correlation is probably due to the fact that prolonged periods of wet weather (lower temperature, reduced sunshine and hence reduced melt) can lead to a lower baseflow in those catchments so that contributions from short and intense precipitation events would be less likely to generate annual discharge peaks.…”

Section: P Froidevaux Et Al: Flood-triggering Precipitation In Switmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Flood triggering in Switzerland: the role of daily to monthly preceding precipitation

Froidevaux

Schwanbeck

Weingartner

et al. 2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Determining the role of different precipitation periods for peak discharge generation is crucial for both projecting future changes in flood probability and for short-and medium-range flood forecasting. In this study, catchmentaveraged daily precipitation time series are analyzed prior to annual peak discharge events (floods) in Switzerland. The high number of floods considered -more than 4000 events from 101 catchments have been analyzed -allows to derive significant information about the role of antecedent precipitation for peak discharge generation. Based on the analysis of precipitation times series, a new separation of flood-related precipitation periods is proposed: (i) the period 0 to 1 day before flood days, when the maximum flood-triggering precipitation rates are generally observed, (ii) the period 2 to 3 days before flood days, when longer-lasting synoptic situations generate "significantly higher than normal" precipitation amounts, and (iii) the period from 4 days to 1 month before flood days when previous wet episodes may have already preconditioned the catchment. The novelty of this study lies in the separation of antecedent precipitation into the precursor antecedent precipitation (4 days before floods or earlier, called PRE-AP) and the short range precipitation (0 to 3 days before floods, a period when precipitation is often driven by one persistent weather situation like e.g., a stationary low-pressure system). A precise separation of "antecedent" and "peak-triggering" precipitation is not attempted. Instead, the strict definition of antecedent precipitation periods permits a direct comparison of all catchments.The precipitation accumulating 0 to 3 days before an event is the most relevant for floods in Switzerland. PRE-AP precipitation has only a weak and region-specific influence on flood probability. Floods were significantly more frequent after wet PRE-AP periods only in the Jura Mountains, in the western and eastern Swiss plateau, and at the outlet of large lakes. As a general rule, wet PRE-AP periods enhance the flood probability in catchments with gentle topography, high infiltration rates, and large storage capacity (karstic cavities, deep soils, large reservoirs). In contrast, floods were significantly less frequent after wet PRE-AP periods in glacial catchments because of reduced melt.For the majority of catchments however, no significant correlation between precipitation amounts and flood occurrences is found when the last 3 days before floods are omitted in the precipitation amounts. Moreover, the PRE-AP was not higher for extreme floods than for annual floods with a high frequency and was very close to climatology for all floods. The fact that floods are not significantly more frequent nor more intense after wet PRE-AP is a clear indicator of a short discharge memory of Pre-Alpine, Alpine and South Alpine Swiss catchments. Our study poses the question whether the impact of long-term precursory precipitation for floods in such catchments is not overestimated in the general ...

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Section: Selection and Classification Of Catchmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Selection and Classification Of Catchmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: P Froidevaux Et Al: Flood-triggering Precipitation In Switmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Flood triggering in Switzerland: the role of daily to monthly preceding precipitation

Froidevaux

Schwanbeck

Weingartner

et al. 2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

Self Cite

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“…Furthermore, Köplin et al (2014) predicted a shift from snowmelt-dominated runoff to D. Freudiger et al: Large-scale analysis of rain-on-snow events a more variable snow-and rain-fed regime in the future in Switzerland. These meteorological changes are very likely to influence the occurrence and magnitude of RoS events, and Köplin et al (2014) predict a diversification of flood types in the wintertime as well as an increase of RoS flood events in the future in Switzerland.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large-scale analysis of changing frequencies of rain-on-snow events with flood-generation potential

Freudiger

Kohn

Stahl

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

100

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Abstract. In January 2011 a rain-on-snow (RoS) event caused floods in the major river basins in central Europe, i.e. the Rhine, Danube, Weser, Elbe, Oder, and Ems. This event prompted the questions of how to define a RoS event and whether those events have become more frequent. Based on the flood of January 2011 and on other known events of the past, threshold values for potentially flood-generating RoS events were determined. Consequently events with rainfall of at least 3 mm on a snowpack of at least 10 mm snow water equivalent (SWE) and for which the sum of rainfall and snowmelt contains a minimum of 20 % snowmelt were analysed. RoS events were estimated for the time period 1950-2011 and for the entire study area based on a temperature index snow model driven with a European-scale gridded data set of daily climate (E-OBS data). Frequencies and magnitudes of the modelled events differ depending on the elevation range. When distinguishing alpine, upland, and lowland basins, we found that upland basins are most influenced by RoS events. Overall, the frequency of rainfall increased during winter, while the frequency of snowfall decreased during spring. A decrease in the frequency of RoS events from April to May has been observed in all upland basins since 1990. In contrast, the results suggest an increasing trend in the magnitude and frequency of RoS days in January and February for most of the lowland and upland basins. These results suggest that the flood hazard from RoS events in the early winter season has increased in the medium-elevation mountain ranges of central Europe, especially in the Rhine, Weser, and Elbe river basins.

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“…They define the requirements in a correct representation of (1) intensities, (2) temporal variability, (3) spatial variability, and (4) consistency between different local-scale variables. Köplin et al (2014) used future climate change scenarios from the ENSEMBLES project to analyse the seasonality and magnitude of floods in Switzerland.…”

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confidence: 99%

Convection-permitting regional climate simulations for representing floods in small and medium sized catchments in the Eastern Alps

Reszler¹,

Switanek²,

Truhetz³

2018

Preprint

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Abstract. Small scale floods are a consequence of high precipitation rates in small areas that can occur along frontal activity and convective storms. This situation is expected to become more severe due to a warming climate, when single precipitation events resulting from deep convection become more intense ("Super Clausius-Clapeyron effect"). Regional climate model (RCM) evaluations and inter-comparisons have shown that there is evidence that an increase in regional climate model 10 resolution and in particular, at the convection permitting scale, will lead to a better representation of the spatial and temporal characteristics of heavy precipitation at small and medium scales. In this paper, the benefit of grid size reduction and bias correction in climate models are evaluated in their ability to properly represent flood generation in small and medium sized catchments. The climate models are coupled with a distributed hydrological model. The study area is the Eastern Alps, where small scale storms often occur along with heterogeneous rainfall distributions leading to a very local flash flood 15 generation. The work is carried out in a small multi-model (ensemble) framework using two different RCMs (CCLM and WRF) in different grid sizes. Bias correction is performed by the use of the novel Scaled Distribution Mapping (SDM) method. The results show, that for small catchments (< 200 km²) a resolution of 3 km is essential to accurately simulate the magnitude of flood events. Flood frequency and seasonality are both represented well in all catchments. In the larger catchments resolutions of 12.5 km and 50 km already yield statistically satisfying results, but poor results regarding 20 seasonality. Also, due to the short response times in the small sub-catchments a time step of 1 hour is required. In all setups a bias still exists in precipitation and temperature, which sometimes leads to unrealistic hydrological conditions demonstrating the necessity of bias correction. The results show the added value of reducing grid size and bias correction in climate models that can be used to model flood mechanisms in small and medium sized catchments.

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Seasonality and magnitude of floods in Switzerland under future climate change

Cited by 94 publications

References 46 publications

Flood triggering in Switzerland: the role of daily to monthly preceding precipitation

Flood triggering in Switzerland: the role of daily to monthly preceding precipitation

Large-scale analysis of changing frequencies of rain-on-snow events with flood-generation potential

Convection-permitting regional climate simulations for representing floods in small and medium sized catchments in the Eastern Alps

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