Simulation of flood hazard and risk in the Danube basin with the Future Danube Model

Abstract. Continental–global-scale flood hazard models simulate design floods, i.e. theoretical flood events of a given probability. Since they output phenomena unobservable in reality, large-scale models are typically compared to more localised engineering models to evidence their accuracy. However, both types of model may share the same biases and so not validly illustrate their predictive skill. Here, we adapt an existing continental-scale design flood framework of the contiguous US to simulate historical flood events. A total of 35 discrete events are modelled and compared to observations of flood extent, water level, and inundated buildings. Model performance was highly variable, depending on the flood event chosen and validation data used. While all events were accurately replicated in terms of flood extent, some modelled water levels deviated substantially from those measured in the field. Despite this, the model generally replicated the observed flood events in the context of terrain data vertical accuracy, extreme discharge measurement uncertainties, and observational field data errors. This analysis highlights the continually improving fidelity of large-scale flood hazard models, yet also evidences the need for considerable advances in the accuracy of routinely collected field and high-river flow data in order to interrogate flood inundation models more comprehensively.

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“…Schumann et al, 2013), terrain data (e.g. Hawker et al, 2018), model structure (e.g. Neal et al, 2011), or boundary conditions (e.g.…”

Section: Water Surface Elevation Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating historical flood events at the continental scale: observational validation of a large-scale hydrodynamic model

Wing

Smith

Marston³

et al. 2021

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…The Future Danube Model (FDM) is a high-resolution, multi-hazard and risk model for the Danube basin. While FDM provides climate services for heavy precipitation, heat waves, floods and droughts under climate change (Hattermann et al 2018), the focus of this contribution is on current and future fluvial flood risk. The model domain encompasses the entire Danube River basin covering an area of 801,000 km² shared by 19 countries with more than 81 million inhabitants (Fig.…”

Section: The Future Danube Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This contribution gives an overview of the Future Danube Model (FDM), which is a multi-hazard and risk model suite for the Danube region (Hattermann et al 2018). FDM provides climate services related to perils such as heavy precipitation, heat waves, floods and droughts under recent and future climate conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current and future flood risk in the Danube region using an open loss modelling framework

Schröter¹,

Steinhausen²,

Wortmann³

et al. 2021

Science and Practice for an Uncertain Future

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Climate informee planning of adaptation actions requires consistent and reliable information about future risks as well as appropropriate tools and services to support comprehensive flood risk assessment and management. The Future Danube Model is a multi-hazard and risk model suite to provide spatially consistent information on current and future extreme events and to quantify climate risks. The Future Danube Model is composed of exchangeable modules for climate input, hydrology, inundation, flood damage and risk. It is implemented within an open source platform, the OASIS Loss Modelling Framework. The application of the Future Danube Model is showcased for the assessment of current and future flood risk to residential buildings in the Danube region. Outputs from Global and Regional Climate Models for a reference period and three future climate periods are used to drive the model chain. Results show predominantly an increase in peak discharges across the Danube basin with exception for the Moldava and Tisza rivers. Future fluvial flood risk is shown to most likely increase in the future which is more pronounced for the high-end RCP84 scenario.

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“…With rising global temperatures (WMO 2019), more water evaporates over the ocean areas. This energetic reason is partly apparent in the intensity shift of hydro-climatic extreme events (Trenberth 2011;Hattermann et al 2018). One of the most frequently asked questions concerns the attribution of current extreme events or episodes to the ongoing (anthropogenic) climate change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of possible dynamical drivers for long-term changes in temperature and rainfall patterns over Europe

Hoffmann

Spekat

2020

Theor Appl Climatol

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This study looks into the question to what extent long-term change patterns of observed temperature and rainfall over Europe can be attributed to dynamical causes, in other words: Are the observed changes due to a change in frequency of the patterns or have the patterns’ dynamical properties changed? By using a combination of daily meteorological data and a European weather-type classification, the long-term monthly mean temperature and precipitation were calculated for each weather-type. Subsequently, the observed weather-type sequences were used to construct analogue time series for temperature and precipitation which only include the dynamical component of the long-term variability since 1961. The results show that only a fraction of about 20% of the past temperature rise since 1990, which for example amounted to 1 °C at the Potsdam Climate Station can be explained by dynamical changes, i.e. most of the weather-types have become warmer. Concerning long-term changes of seasonal rainfall patterns, a fraction of more than 60% is considerably higher. Moreover, the results indicate that for rainfall compared with temperature, the decadal variability and trends of the dynamical component follow the observed ones much stronger. Consequently, most of the explained seasonal rainfall variances can be linked to changes in weather-type sequences in Potsdam and over Europe. The dynamical contribution to long-term changes in annual and seasonal rainfall patterns dominates due to the fact that the alternation of wet and dry weather-types (e.g. the types Trough or High pressure over Central Europe), their frequencies and duration has significantly changed in the last decades.

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Simulation of flood hazard and risk in the Danube basin with the Future Danube Model

Cited by 31 publications

References 30 publications

Simulating historical flood events at the continental scale: observational validation of a large-scale hydrodynamic model

Simulating historical flood events at the continental scale: observational validation of a large-scale hydrodynamic model

Current and future flood risk in the Danube region using an open loss modelling framework

Identification of possible dynamical drivers for long-term changes in temperature and rainfall patterns over Europe

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