scholarly journals Flash Flood Events along the West Mediterranean Coasts: Inundations of Urbanized Areas Conditioned by Anthropic Impacts

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 620
Author(s):  
Francesco Faccini ◽  
Fabio Luino ◽  
Guido Paliaga ◽  
Anna Roccati ◽  
Laura Turconi
Keyword(s):  
Flash Flood ◽  
Urban Expansion ◽  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Intense Rainfall ◽  
Frequency Increase ◽  
Ligurian Sea ◽  
Ground Effects

Flash floods represent one of the natural hazards that causes the greatest number of victims in the Mediterranean area. These processes occur by short and intense rainfall affecting limited areas of a few square kilometers, with rapid hydrological responses. Among the causes of the flood frequency increase in the last decades are the effects of the urban expansion in areas of fluvial pertinence and climatic change, namely the interaction between anthropogenic landforms and hydro-geomorphological dynamics. In this paper the authors show a comparison between flood events with very similar weather-hydrological characteristics and the ground effects occurred in coastal areas of three regions located at the top of a triangle in the Ligurian Sea, namely Liguria, Tuscany and Sardinia. With respect to the meteorological-hydrological hazard, it should be noted that the events analyzed occurred during autumn, in the conditions of a storm system triggered by cyclogenesis on the Genoa Gulf or by the extra-tropical cyclone Cleopatra. The “flash floods” damage recorded in the inhabited areas is due to the vulnerability of the elements at risk in the fluvio-coastal plains examined. There are numerous anthropogenic forcings that have influenced the hydro-geomorphological dynamics and that have led to an increase in risk conditions.

Using convection-permitting climate models and a high-resolution distributed hydrological model to assess future changes in Alpine flash floods.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjanne Zander ◽  
Pety Viguurs ◽  
Frederiek Sperna Weiland ◽  
Albrecht Weerts
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Flash Flood ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Climate Dynamics ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
European Climate

<p>Flash Floods are damaging natural hazards which often occur in the European Alps. Precipitation patterns and intensity may change in a future climate affecting their occurrence and magnitude. For impact studies, flash floods can be difficult to simulate due the complex orography and limited extent & duration of the heavy rainfall events which trigger them. The new generation convection-permitting regional climate models improve the intensity and frequency of heavy precipitation (Ban et al., 2021).</p><p>Therefore, this study combines such simulations with high-resolution distributed hydrological modelling to assess changes in flash flood frequency and occurrence over the Alpine terrain. We use the state-of-the-art Unified Model (Berthou et al., 2018) to drive a high-resolution distributed hydrological wflow_sbm model (e.g. Imhoff et al., 2020) covering most of the Alpine mountain range on an hourly resolution. Simulations of the future climate RCP 8.5 for the end-of-century (2096-2105) and current climate (1998-2007) are compared.</p><p>First, the wflow_sbm model was validated by comparing ERA5 driven simulation with streamflow observations (across Rhone, Rhine, Po, Adige and Danube). Second, the wflow_sbm simulation driven by UM simulation of the current climate was compared to a dataset of historical flood occurrences (Paprotny et al., 2018, Earth Syst. Sci. Data) to validate if the model can accurately simulate the location of the flash floods and to determine a suitable threshold for flash flooding. Finally, the future run was used to asses changes in flash flood frequency and occurrence. Results show an increase in flash flood frequency for the Upper Rhine and Adige catchments. For the Rhone the increase was less pronounced. The locations where the flash floods occur did not change much.</p><p>This research is embedded in the EU H2020 project EUCP (EUropean Climate Prediction system) (https://www.eucp-project.eu/), which aims to support climate adaptation and mitigation decisions for the coming decades by developing a regional climate prediction and projection system based on high-resolution climate models for Europe.</p><p> </p><p>N. Ban, E. Brisson, C. Caillaud, E. Coppola, E. Pichelli, S. Sobolowski, …, M.J. Zander (2021): “The first multi-model ensemble of regional climate simulations at the kilometer-scale resolution, Part I: Evaluation of precipitation”, manuscript accepted for publication in Climate Dynamics.</p><p>S. Berthou, E.J. Kendon, S. C. Chan, N. Ban, D. Leutwyler, C. Schär, and G. Fosser, 2018, “Pan-european climate at convection-permitting scale: a model intercomparison study.” Climate Dynamics, pages 1–25, DOI: 10.1007/s00382-018-4114-6</p><p>Imhoff, R.O., W. van Verseveld, B. van Osnabrugge, A.H. Weerts, 2020. “Scaling point-scale pedotransfer functions parameter estimates for seamless large-domain high-resolution distributed hydrological modelling: An example for the Rhine river.” Water Resources Research, 56. Doi: 10.1029/2019WR026807</p><p>Paprotny, D., Morales Napoles, O., & Jonkman, S. N., 2018. "HANZE: a pan-European database of exposure to natural hazards and damaging historical floods since 1870". Earth System Science Data, 10, 565–581, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-565-2018</p>

The unusual floods and flood frequency in 1858–1878 dry period in Central and Western Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Libor Elleder ◽  
Ladislav Kašpárek ◽  
Jakub Krejčí ◽  
Jolana Šírová ◽  
Stanislav Racko
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Flash Flood ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Dry Period ◽  
Drought Period ◽  
Extreme Flood ◽  
Strong Winds

<p>According to the present knowledge, the second half of the 19<sup>th</sup> century meant the end of the Little Ice Age and gradual warming.  This is, however, undoubtedly a fairly simplified statement.  Our contribution presents the period of 1858–1878: (1) from the point of view of drought but also (2) regarding frequency of floods. The aggregation for this period of weather-driven risks such as droughts, floods, strong winds and high tides, is worth attention.  The length of the drought period of 1858–1878, the absolute value of rainfall deficits and the length of seasonal droughts, as well as their impacts, are a certain warning in terms of our present.</p><p>Surprisingly, in such a dry period we witness an accumulation of important and extreme flood episodes as well. The regional catastrophic floods of 1858, and winter extensive floods of 1862 and 1876, may serve as excellent examples.  Furthermore, the Elbe catchment recorded floods with return periods of 10–20 years in 1860, 1865 and 1872. For this period, an occurrence of intensive mesoscale flash flood events with extreme hydrological parameters, high number of fatalities and large damages are of the utmost importance (e.g. 1868-Switzerland, 1872-Czechlands, 1874- Catalonia, 1875-South France). Our contribution builds on earlier analysed flood events of 1872, 1875 and drought period presented at EGU earlier. The contribution stresses the analogies and differences with present situation in 2014–2019.  We mainly address the situation in Czech lands, Central Europe interpreted in wider European context.</p>

scholarly journals Post-event analysis and flash flood hydrology in Slovakia

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 304-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamila Hlavčová ◽  
Silvia Kohnová ◽  
Marco Borga ◽  
Oliver Horvát ◽  
Pavel Šťastný ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Flash Flood ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
Event Analysis ◽  
Distributed Hydrological Model ◽  
Rainfall Runoff ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Spatially Distributed ◽  
Catchment Size ◽  
Flood Peaks

Abstract This work examines the main features of the flash flood regime in Central Europe as revealed by an analysis of flash floods that have occurred in Slovakia. The work is organized into the following two parts: The first part focuses on estimating the rainfall-runoff relationships for 3 major flash flood events, which were among the most severe events since 1998 and caused a loss of lives and a large amount of damage. The selected flash floods occurred on the 20th of July, 1998, in the Malá Svinka and Dubovický Creek basins; the 24th of July, 2001, at Štrbský Creek; and the 19th of June, 2004, at Turniansky Creek. The analysis aims to assess the flash flood peaks and rainfall-runoff properties by combining post-flood surveys and the application of hydrological and hydraulic post-event analyses. Next, a spatially-distributed hydrological model based on the availability of the raster information of the landscape’s topography, soil and vegetation properties, and rainfall data was used to simulate the runoff. The results from the application of the distributed hydrological model were used to analyse the consistency of the surveyed peak discharges with respect to the estimated rainfall properties and drainage basins. In the second part these data were combined with observations from flash flood events which were observed during the last 100 years and are focused on an analysis of the relationship between the flood peaks and the catchment area. The envelope curve was shown to exhibit a more pronounced decrease with the catchment size with respect to other flash flood relationships found in the Mediterranean region. The differences between the two relationships mainly reflect changes in the coverage of the storm sizes and hydrological characteristics between the two regions.

scholarly journals Assessing long term flash flooding frequency using historical information

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Archer ◽  
Geoff Parkin ◽  
Hayley J. Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Flash Flood ◽  
Climatic Variability ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
Abrupt Onset ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Historical Information ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Historical Series ◽  
Historical Accounts

Flash floods are distinguished from ‘normal flooding’ by an abrupt onset arising from intense short period rainfall. Historical information based on pre-gauged descriptive information is used to prepare time series of flash floods for Northeast England and Southwest England as decadal numbers of events from 1800. The time series show a minimum in the late twentieth century for both locations. Flash flood frequency is then assessed for three locations in Northeast England by comparing recent extreme floods with historical accounts: (1) an urban pluvial flood in Newcastle in June 2012, (2) a severe flood in September 1968 on the Cotting Burn, a small ungauged tributary of the River Wansbeck, and (3) an extreme rate of rise in river level on the River Wansbeck in August 1994. Although there have been no comparable recent occurrences, several flash floods of equal or greater magnitude at the same locations were identified from historical accounts. Using the longer historical record in conjunction with limited recent observations has advantages when assessing the frequency of occurrence of rare events. However, these advantages are tempered by the possibility of non-stationarity in the historical series owing to catchment changes, from natural climatic variability and from potential anthropogenic climate change.

scholarly journals Effectiveness of the Submersible Embankment in Haor Area in Bangladesh

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 780-792
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hossain Mahtab ◽  
Miho Ohara ◽  
Mohamed Rasmy ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Flash Flood ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
Rainfall Runoff ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Monsoon Period ◽  
Flash Flooding ◽  
The North ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Embankment Height ◽  
North Eastern Part

The north-eastern part of Bangladesh is very productive for agriculture and fishing, and the region involves several depressed (haor) areas. Flash floods during the pre-monsoon period bring devastating damage to agriculture in the haor region recurrently. To protect crops from flash floods, the Bangladesh Water Development Board constructed several ring-type submersible embankments. In this research, we have investigated the effectiveness of submersible embankments in controlling flash flooding in the Matian and Shanir haors in the Sunamganj district. A two-dimensional rainfall runoff inundation model was applied considering several scenarios for simulating heavy flash flood events in 2004, 2010, and 2016. Without an embankment, the river overflow would have entered the Matian haor 3 days, 22 days, and 9 days earlier in 2004, 2010, and 2016, respectively, whereas it would have been 7 days and 23 days earlier in 2004 and 2010 for the Shanir haor. The event in 2016 was successfully stopped by the Shanir haor embankment. To avoid river overflow entering into the Matian and Shanir haor completely, the embankment height must be elevated further by 1 m and 0.7 m, respectively. Providing proper drainage facilities for the accumulated rain water inside the hoar is still an important issue for protecting the crops effectively.

scholarly journals Impact of Flash Flood Events on the Coastal Waters Around Madeira Island: The “Land Mass Effect”

2022 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Rosa ◽  
Cláudio Cardoso ◽  
Rui Vieira ◽  
Ricardo Faria ◽  
Ana R. Oliveira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Chlorophyll A ◽  
Coastal Waters ◽  
Flash Flood ◽  
Mass Effect ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
River Plume ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Madeira Island ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Land Runoff

The Island Mass Effect has been primarily attributed to nutrient enhancement of waters surrounding oceanic islands due to physical processes, whereas the role of land runoff has seldom been considered. Land runoff can be particularly relevant in mountainous islands, highly susceptible to torrential rainfall that rapidly leads to flash floods. Madeira Island, located in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, is historically known for its flash flood events, when steep streams transport high volumes of water and terrigenous material downstream. A 22-year analysis of satellite data revealed that a recent catastrophic flash flood (20 February 2010) was responsible for the most significant concentration of non-algal Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) and Chlorophyll-a at the coast. In this context, our study aims to understand the impact of the February 2010 flash flood events on coastal waters, by assessing the impact of spatial and temporal variability of wind, precipitation, and river discharges. Two specific flash floods events are investigated in detail (2 and 20 February 2010), which coincided with northeasterly and southwesterly winds, respectively. Given the lack of in situ data documenting these events, a coupled air-sea-land numerical framework was used, including hydrological modeling. The dynamics of the modeled river plumes induced by flash floods were strongly influenced by the wind regimes subsequently affecting coastal circulation, which may help to explain the differences between observed SPM and Chlorophyll-a distributions. Model simulations showed that during northeasterly winds, coastal confinement of the buoyant river plume persisted on the island’s north coast, preventing offshore transport of SPM. This mechanism may have contributed to favorable conditions for phytoplankton growth, as captured by satellite-derived Chlorophyll-a in the northeastern coastal waters. On the island’s south coast, strong ocean currents generated in the eastern island flank promoted strong vertical shear, contributing to vertical mixing. During southwesterly winds, coastal confinement of the plume with strong vertical density gradient was observed on the south side. The switch to eastward winds spread the south river plume offshore, forming a filament of high Chlorophyll-a extending 70 km offshore. Our framework demonstrates a novel methodology to investigate ocean productivity around remote islands with sparse or absent field observations.

scholarly journals Neural network modeling and geochemical water analyses to understand and forecast karst and non-karst part of flash floods (case study on the <i>Lez</i> river, Southern France)

2015 ◽  
Vol 369 ◽  
pp. 43-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Darras ◽  
F. Raynaud ◽  
V. Borrell Estupina ◽  
L. Kong-A-Siou ◽  
S. Van-Exter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Flash Flood ◽  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
Neural Network Modeling ◽  
Heterogeneous Structure ◽  
Nonlinear Behaviour ◽  
Complex Behaviour ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Water Analyses

Abstract. Flash floods forecasting in the Mediterranean area is a major economic and societal issue. Specifically, considering karst basins, heterogeneous structure and nonlinear behaviour make the flash flood forecasting very difficult. In this context, this work proposes a methodology to estimate the contribution from karst and non-karst components using toolbox including neural networks and various hydrological methods. The chosen case study is the flash flooding of the Lez river, known for his complex behaviour and huge stakes, at the gauge station of Lavallette, upstream of Montpellier (400 000 inhabitants). After application of the proposed methodology, discharge at the station of Lavallette is spited between hydrographs of karst flood and surface runoff, for the two events of 2014. Generalizing the method to future events will allow designing forecasting models specifically for karst and surface flood increasing by this way the reliability of the forecasts.

From Flash Flood Vulnerability and Risk Assessment to Property Damage Prediction: the Value of Machine Learning

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atieh Alipour ◽  
Peyman Abbaszadeh ◽  
Ali Ahmadalipour ◽  
Hamid Moradkhani
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Flash Flood ◽  
Rapid Onset ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
Flood Damage ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Property Damage ◽  
Damage Prediction ◽  
Financial Consequences

&lt;p&gt;Flash floods, as a result of frequent torrential rainfalls caused by tropical storms, thunderstorms,&lt;br&gt;and hurricanes, are a prevalent natural disaster in the southeast U.S. (SEUS), which frequently&lt;br&gt;threaten human lives and properties in the region. According to the U.S. National Weather&lt;br&gt;Service (NWS), flash floods generally initiate within less than six hours of an intense rainfall&lt;br&gt;onset. Therefore, there is a limited chance for effective and timely decision-making. Due to the&lt;br&gt;rapid onset of flash floods, they are costly events, such that only during 1996 to 2017 flash&lt;br&gt;floods imposed 7.5 billion dollars property damage to the SEUS. Therefore, estimating the&lt;br&gt;potential economic damages as a result of flash floods are crucial for flood risk management and&lt;br&gt;financial appraisals for decision makers. A multitude of studies have focused on flood damage&lt;br&gt;modeling, few of which investigated the issue on a large domain. Here, we propose a systematic&lt;br&gt;framework that considers a variety of factors that explain different risk components (i.e., hazard,&lt;br&gt;vulnerability, and exposure) and leverages Machine Learning (ML) for flood damage prediction.&lt;br&gt;Over 14,000 flash flood events during 1996 to 2017 were assessed to analyze their characteristics&lt;br&gt;including frequency, duration, and intensity. Also, different data sources were utilized to derive&lt;br&gt;information related to each event. The most influential features are then selected using a multi&lt;br&gt;criteria variable selection approach. Then, the ML model is implemented for not only binary&lt;br&gt;classification of damage (i.e., whether a flash flood event caused any damage or not), but also for&lt;br&gt;developing a model to predict the financial consequences associated with flash flood events. The&lt;br&gt;results indicate a high accuracy for the classifier, significant correlation and relatively low bias&lt;br&gt;between the predicted and observed property damages showing the effectiveness of proposed&lt;br&gt;methodology for flash flood damage modeling applicable to variety of flood prone regions.&lt;/p&gt;

Using Climate Models to Estimate Urban Vulnerability to Flash Floods

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (9) ◽  
pp. 2637-2650 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Kermanshah ◽  
S. Derrible ◽  
M. Berkelhammer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Travel Demand ◽  
Flash Flood ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Geographical Information ◽  
Climate System Model ◽  
Infrastructure Networks ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Climate change will impact urban infrastructure networks by changing precipitation patterns in a region. This study presents a novel vulnerability assessment framework for infrastructure networks against extreme rainfall-induced flash floods, with a specific application to transportation. The framework combines climate models, network science, geographical information systems (GIS), and stochastic modeling to compile a vulnerability surface (VS). Daily precipitation simulations for 2006–2100 from the Community Climate System Model, version 4 (CCSM4), are used to produce a stochastic simulation of extreme flash flood events in five U.S. cities—that is, Boston, Massachusetts; Houston, Texas; Miami, Florida; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—under two different climate scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). To assess the impact of these events, percentage drops in static (i.e., overall properties and robustness topological indicators) and dynamic (i.e., GIS accessibility and travel demand metrics) network properties are measured before and after simulated extreme events. The results of these metrics are inputs on a radar diagram to form a VS. Overall, the results show that changes in flash flood frequency due to climate change can have a significant impact on road networks, as was demonstrated recently in Houston, Texas. The magnitude of these impacts is chiefly associated with the geographic location of the cities and the size of the networks. The proposed framework can be reproduced in any city around the world, and researchers can use the results as guidelines for infrastructure design and planning purposes. Moreover, sensitivity analysis to varying greenhouse gas concentration trajectories can help local and national authorities to prioritize strategies for adaptation to climate change in more vulnerable regions.

scholarly journals A Multimethod Approach towards Assessing Urban Flood Patterns and Its Associated Vulnerabilities in Singapore

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winston T. L. Chow ◽  
Brendan D. Cheong ◽  
Beatrice H. Ho
Keyword(s):  
Flash Flood ◽  
Flood Management ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Storm Events ◽  
Urban Flood ◽  
Infrastructural Development ◽  
Damage Claims ◽  
Multimethod Approach ◽  
City State

We investigated flooding patterns in the urbanised city-state of Singapore through a multimethod approach combining station precipitation data with archival newspaper and governmental records; changes in flash floods frequencies or reported impacts of floods towards Singapore society were documented. We subsequently discussed potential flooding impacts in the context of urban vulnerability, based on future urbanisation and forecasted precipitation projections for Singapore. We find that, despite effective flood management, (i) significant increases in reported flash flood frequency occurred in contemporary (post-2000) relative to preceding (1984–1999) periods, (ii) these flash floods coincide with more localised, “patchy” storm events, (iii) storms in recent years are also more intense and frequent, and (iv) floods result in low human casualties but have high economic costs via insurance damage claims. We assess that Singapore presently has low vulnerability to floods vis-à-vis other regional cities largely due to holistic flood management via consistent and successful infrastructural development, widespread flood monitoring, and effective advisory platforms. We conclude, however, that future vulnerabilities may increase from stresses arising from physical exposure to climate change and from demographic sensitivity via rapid population growth. Anticipating these changes is potentially useful in maintaining the high resilience of Singapore towards this hydrometeorological hazard.

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