Past hydrological extreme events in a changing climate

Benito, Gerardo; Macklin, Mark G.; Cohen, K.M.; Herget, Jürgen

doi:10.1016/j.catena.2014.12.001

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…5). Within comparable time windows (Table 4), a number of multiproxy Mediterranean records provide evidence for two centennial-scale climatic events with similar characteristics (Nieto-Moreno et al, 2011;Roberts et al, 2011;Magny et al, 2012a,b;Fletcher and Zielhofer, 2013;Benito et al, 2015). The older one falls within the chronological interval of the well-known 4.2 ka event (Bond et al, 1997;Mayewski et al, 2004;Finné et al, 2011), which apparently shows a tripartite humidity oscillation between~4300 and 3800 cal yr BP in the central-western Mediterranean area (Magny et al, 2009).…”

Section: Climatementioning

confidence: 91%

Climatic signature of two mid–late Holocene fluvial incisions formed under sea-level highstand conditions (Pisa coastal plain, NW Tuscany, Italy)

Sarti

Rossi

Amorosi

et al. 2015

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

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Section: Climatementioning

confidence: 91%

Climatic signature of two mid–late Holocene fluvial incisions formed under sea-level highstand conditions (Pisa coastal plain, NW Tuscany, Italy)

Sarti

Rossi

Amorosi

et al. 2015

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

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“…Such data are crucial for reconstructing past geomorphological process regimes and in identifying the type and magnitude of extreme events that have triggered substantive landscape scale change (e.g. Benito et al, 2015a;Archer et al, 2016). The next section shows how geomorphic evidence from past century to millennial timescales can usefully augment available instrumental records of extreme hydroclimatic events and the effects of these on landscape change.…”

Section: Stormy Geomorphologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Macklin et al, 2012a). These reconstructions serve not only to decipher environmental change at catchment and regional scales, but when further combined with instrumented and stratigraphic records across regions, they can be used to reconstruct broader synoptic climatic changes over 10 2 -10 5 year timescales (Ely et al, 1992;Knox, 1975Knox, , 1985Knox, , 1993Macklin et al, 2006;Benito et al, 2015aBenito et al, , 2015bBenito et al, , 2015c. This extended spatial and temporal record has the potential to improve significantly predicted event occurrence probabilities in flood and storm risk assessments (e.g.…”

Section: The Geomorphic Evidence Of Changing Storminessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stormy geomorphology: geomorphic contributions in an age of climate extremes

Naylor

Spencer

Lane

et al. 2016

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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103

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The increasing frequency and/or severity of extreme climate events are becoming increasingly apparent over multidecadal timescales at the global scale, albeit with relatively low scientific confidence. At the regional scale, scientific confidence in the future trends of extreme event likelihood is stronger, although the trends are spatially variable. Confidence in these extreme climate risks is muddied by the confounding effects of internal landscape system dynamics and external forcing factors such as changes in land use and river and coastal engineering. Geomorphology is a critical discipline in disentangling climate change impacts from other controlling factors, thereby contributing to debates over societal adaptation to extreme events. We review four main geomorphic contributions to flood and storm science. First, we show how palaeogeomorphological and current process studies can extend the historical flood record while also unraveling the complex interactions between internal geomorphic dynamics, human impacts and changes in climate regimes. A key outcome will be improved quantification of flood probabilities and the hazard dimension of flood risk. Second, we present evidence showing how antecedent geomorphological and climate parameters can alter the risk and magnitude of landscape change caused by extreme events. Third, we show that geomorphic processes can both mediate and increase the geomorphological impacts of extreme events, influencing societal risk. Fourthly, we show the potential of managing flood and storm risk through the geomorphic system, both near-term (next 50 years) and longer-term. We recommend that key methods of managing flooding and erosion will be more effective if risk assessments include palaeodata, if geomorphological science is used to underpin nature-based management approaches, and if land-use management addresses changes in geomorphic process regimes that extreme events can trigger. We argue that adopting geomorphologically-grounded adaptation strategies will enable society to develop more resilient, less vulnerable socio-geomorphological systems fit for an age of climate extremes.

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“…This new necessity is clearly reflected by some early 21st century reviews of flood series at different rivers being published in journals specializing in historical hydrology and paleohydrology (Benito et al, 2005(Benito et al, , 2015bGregory et al, 2006;). There is currently an extended chronology in Europe (Glaser et al, 2010;Brázdil et al, , 2012Luterbacher et al, 2012) that allows detecting spatial and temporal changes in the flood regimes (Blöschl and Montanari, 2010;Hall et al, 2014;Kjeldsen et al, 2014;Kundzewicz et al, 2014) For the Iberian Peninsula (IP), there are historical chronologies that cover most of the basins (Barriendos and Rodrigo, 2006;Benito and Machado, 2012), the Mediterranean coast (Barriendos and Martín-Vide, 1998), Catalonia Llasat et al, 2005;Barrera-Escoda and Llasat, 2015), SE of IP (Machado et al, 2011), the Atlantic rivers (Benito et al, 2003), and some specific areas of the Pyrenees mountain range (Corella et al, 2014(Corella et al, , 2016.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The extreme floods in the Ebro River basin since 1600 CE

Balasch

Pino

Ruiz-Bellet

et al. 2019

Science of The Total Environment

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Reliable and complete knowledge of the historical floods is necessary for understanding the extreme hydrological dynamics of the rivers, their natural variability and anthropic changes. In this work we reconstruct the most important floods of the Ebro basin during the last 400 years in different areas of the basin. The analysis is based on four different areas: the Ebro River at Zaragoza, the Cinca River at Fraga, the Segre River at Lleida, and the Ebro River near its mouth at Tortosa. Based on a documentary research, we have first obtained relevant information about the initial conditions (rainfall duration and distribution, snow cover influence) and the maximum flood heights that allow to reconstruct the maximum peak flows by using hydraulic models and to calculate the subbasins contributions. The results show four main types of extreme floods: a) those affecting simultaneously all the subbasins with the highest peak discharges (Ebro at Tortosa in 1787: 0.15 m s km); b) those originated at the western basin, upstream from Zaragoza, with an Atlantic origin, presenting moderate maximum peak flows, caused by persistent winter rainfall and where snowmelt significantly contributes to the flood; c) those originating at the central Pyrenean subbasins, with Mediterranean origin, occurring, with high peak discharges. These mainly occur during autumn as a consequence of rainfalls of different duration (between 3 days and 1 month), and without significant snow thawing and d) finally, less frequent but very intense flash floods events centered in the Lower Ebro area with low peak flows. In terms of frequency, two different periods can be distinguished: from 1600 until 1850, the frequency of events is low; since 1850 the frequency of events is clearly higher, due to an increase of the climatic variability during last stages of the Little Ice Age. From the 1960's reservoirs construction modifies discharges regime.

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Past hydrological extreme events in a changing climate

Cited by 10 publications

References 9 publications

Climatic signature of two mid–late Holocene fluvial incisions formed under sea-level highstand conditions (Pisa coastal plain, NW Tuscany, Italy)

Climatic signature of two mid–late Holocene fluvial incisions formed under sea-level highstand conditions (Pisa coastal plain, NW Tuscany, Italy)

Stormy geomorphology: geomorphic contributions in an age of climate extremes

The extreme floods in the Ebro River basin since 1600 CE

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Past hydrological extreme events in a changing climate

Cited by 10 publications

References 9 publications

Climatic signature of two mid–late Holocene fluvial incisions formed under sea-level highstand conditions (Pisa coastal plain, NW Tuscany, Italy)

Climatic signature of two mid–late Holocene fluvial incisions formed under sea-level highstand conditions (Pisa coastal plain, NW Tuscany, Italy)

Stormy geomorphology: geomorphic contributions in an age of climate extremes

The extreme floods in the Ebro River basin since 1600 CE

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

The extreme floods in the Ebro River basin since 1600 CE