Quantifying Long‐Term and Event‐Scale Baseflow Effects across the Flood Frequency Curve

Abstract

We use statistical models to quantify the impact of baseflow and antecedent moisture conditions on instantaneous annual maximum flows under long-term and event-based time scales. ABSTRACT: Though metrics that quantify the long-term water balance of a catchment have been known to influence the statistics of flood frequency data, little has been done to understand exactly what the substantive links are that causes baseflow to impact instantaneous annual maximum flows (IAMF). As abrupt changes to baseflow can occur via climate change and human disturbances, understanding the effects of baseflow on IAMF behavior can provide insight into how groundwater alterations and climate change can impact flood risk assessment, particularly for regional data aggregation. We thus seek to quantify baseflow impacts across the flood frequency curve considering a top down approach enumerating the differential impacts of baseflow (as Baseflow Index) across the IAMF flood frequency curve and then analyzing the impact of baseflow at the event-scale. Results show that baseflow exerts significant influence over the entire flood frequency curve, showing a slight increase in effect with higher return period flows. At the event-scale, the permeability of the catchment (proxied by baseflow rate during rising limb), significantly impacted the variability in IAMF and had more of an effect than antecedent moisture of the catchment (proxied by antecedent discharge). Furthermore, the effects of each of the event-scale variables changed across climate regions and return periods, suggesting that changes to climate and groundwater abstractions would greatly affect the flood frequency curve.

Spatial Sensitivity of River Flooding to Changes in Climate and Land Cover Through Explainable AI

“…The increase in precipitation has a greater effect in locations with a high BFI (Figure 4a, p < 0.001), where the rivers have a large extent of fractured aquifers and receive a large proportion of their water from groundwater (Bloomfield et al., 2021). This supports previous work on the importance of baseflow in determining multi‐decadal flood trends (Berghuijs & Slater, 2023) and the flood frequency curve (Spellman & Webster, 2020). Sites with a low runoff ratio, which are typically considered to have high infiltration and evapotranspiration, are also significantly more sensitive to increases in precipitation, especially in autumn (Figure 4b, p < 0.001).…”

Spatial sensitivity of river flooding to changes in climate and land cover through explainable AI

“…The increase in precipitation has a greater effect in locations with a high BFI (Figure 4a, p < 0.001), where the rivers have a large extent of fractured aquifers and receive a large proportion of their water from groundwater (Bloomfield et al, 2021). This supports previous work on the importance of baseflow in determining multidecadal flood trends (Berghuijs & Slater, 2023) and the flood frequency curve (Spellman & Webster, 2020). Sites with a low runoff ratio, which are typically considered to have high infiltration and evapotranspiration, are also significantly more sensitive to increases in precipitation, especially in autumn (Figure 4b, p < 0.001).…”

Baseflow significantly contributes to river floods in Peninsular India

“…The active role of groundwater in storm runoff in streams is discovered decades ago 38 , 39 . Baseflow also exerts significant influence over the entire flood frequency curves 40 . Despite the significant role of groundwater in storm runoff generation, groundwater is rarely considered in flood related studies.…”