The complexities of urban flood response: Flood frequency analyses for the Charlotte metropolitan region

Zhou, Zhengzheng; Smith, James A.; Yang, Long; Baeck, Mary Lynn; Chaney, M. M.; Veldhuis, Marie-Claire ten; Deng, Huiping; Liu, Shuguang

doi:10.1002/2016wr019997

Cited by 53 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 117 publications

(164 reference statements)

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“…The largest overlap in storm events, 69 %, is found for the two largest basins, 48.5 and 111.1 km 2 in size. This confirms results reported by Smith et al (2013b) and Zhou et al (2017), who also found markedly different rainfall climatologies for flood-producing storms in basins of different size.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Moreover, spatial variability changes over the duration of events, more strongly so for the larger than for the smaller basins. This is a characteristic of hydroclimatic conditions in this region northeast of the Appalachians, as confirmed for instance by Zhou et al (2017). Similar results were found by Lobligeois et al (2014), who analyzed spatial variability of storm events associated with the largest 20 flood events in 181 basins in France.…”

Section: Spatial Rainfall Variability and Fractional Basin Coveragesupporting

confidence: 71%

“…Our results also show that for the urbanized basins in Little Sugar Creek, some of the highest peak flows (top 10 events in flood catalog) occur for fractional coverage well below 100 %. This could be associated with urbanization effects changing the upper tail of the peak flow distribution, as was suggested by Zhou et al (2017), resulting in a different representation of storm events in the highest quantile peak flows.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The role of other spatially variable catchment characteristics like topography and (urban) soil properties have not been considered in this study. In a recent study by Zhou et al (2017) the effect of antecedent watershed wetness was investigated for the Charlotte region. They did not find a significant influence of antecedent rainfall on flood response.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another interesting feature appears in the empirical histograms: for the smaller basins, fractional coverage values tends to be either small compared to basin size (coverage 0-20 %) or approaching basin size (coverage 80-100 %). Zhou et al (2017) showed that the hydro-climatology of flood events in this region reflects a mixture of flood agents, consisting of thunderstorms and tropical cyclones. The largest fraction of events in the upper tail of flood distributions for basins in this area is associated with organized thunderstorms, which could explain the spatially concentrated nature of storm cores over LSugar Creek subbasins.…”

Section: Spatial Rainfall Variability and Fractional Basin Coveragementioning

confidence: 99%

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The role of storm scale, position and movement in controlling urban flood response

Veldhuis

Zhou

Yang

et al. 2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The impact of spatial and temporal variability of rainfall on hydrological response remains poorly understood, in particular in urban catchments due to their strong variability in land use, a high degree of imperviousness and the presence of stormwater infrastructure. In this study, we analyze the effect of storm scale, position and movement in relation to basin scale and flow-path network structure on urban hydrological response. A catalog of 279 peak events was extracted from a high-quality observational dataset covering 15 years of flow observations and radar rainfall data for five (semi)urbanized basins ranging from 7.0 to 111.1 km 2 in size. Results showed that the largest peak flows in the event catalog were associated with storm core scales exceeding basin scale, for all except the largest basin. Spatial scale of flood-producing storm events in the smaller basins fell into two groups: storms of large spatial scales exceeding basin size or small, concentrated events, with storm core much smaller than basin size. For the majority of events, spatial rainfall variability was strongly smoothed by the flowpath network, increasingly so for larger basin size. Correlation analysis showed that position of the storm in relation to the flow-path network was significantly correlated with peak flow in the smallest and in the two more urbanized basins. Analysis of storm movement relative to the flow-path network showed that direction of storm movement, upstream or downstream relative to the flow-path network, had little influence on hydrological response. Slow-moving storms tend to be associated with higher peak flows and longer lag times. Unexpectedly, position of the storm relative to impervious cover within the basins had little effect on flow peaks. These findings show the importance of observation-based analysis in validating and improving our understanding of interactions between the spatial distribution of rainfall and catchment variability.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Spatial Rainfall Variability and Fractional Basin Coveragesupporting

confidence: 71%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Spatial Rainfall Variability and Fractional Basin Coveragementioning

confidence: 99%

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The role of storm scale, position and movement in controlling urban flood response

Veldhuis

Zhou

Yang

et al. 2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Crossing the rural–urban boundary in hydrological modelling: How do conceptual rainfall–runoff models handle the specificities of urbanized catchments?

Saadi

Oudin

Ribstein

2020

Hydrological Processes

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Landscape differences induced by urbanization have prompted hydrologists to define a fuzzy boundary between rural‐ and urban‐specific hydrological models. We addressed the validity of establishing this boundary, by testing two rural models on a large sample of 175 French and United States (US) urbanized catchments, and their 175 rural neighbours. The impact of urbanization on the hydrological behaviour was checked using four metrics. Using a split‐sample test, we have compared the performances, parameter distributions, and internal fluxes of GR4H and IHACRES, two conceptual and continuous models running at the hourly time step. Both model structures are based on soil moisture accounting reservoirs (infiltration, runoff, and actual evapotranspiration) and quick flow/slow flow routing components, with no consideration of any specific feature related to urbanization. Results showed: (a) Except for the ratio of streamflow flashiness to precipitation flashiness, the range of hydrological signature metrics in rural catchments encompassed the specificities of urbanized ones. Overall, the urbanized catchments showed higher ratios of mean streamflow to mean precipitation (median values: 0.39 vs. 0.27) and streamflow flashiness to precipitation flashiness (0.13 vs. 0.03), besides lower baseflow index (0.42 vs. 0.62) and shorter characteristic response time (3 vs. 14 hr). (b) The performances of GR4H revealed no significant distinction between rural and urbanized catchments in terms of Kling–Gupta Efficiency (KGE), whereas IHACRES better simulated urbanized catchments, especially during summer. (c) With respect to differences in urbanization level, the GR4H and IHACRES parameters showed different distributions. The differences in parameters were consistent with the differences in hydrological behaviour, which is promising for a model‐based assessment of the impact of urbanization. (d) The models agreed less in reproducing the internal fluxes over the urbanized catchments than over the rural ones. These results demonstrate the flexibility of conceptual models to handle the specificities of urbanized catchments.

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Estimates of water partitioning in complex urban landscapes with isotope‐aided ecohydrological modelling

Gillefalk

Tetzlaff

Marx

et al. 2022

Hydrological Processes

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Urban green space is increasingly viewed as essential infrastructure to build resilience to climate change by retaining water in the city landscape and balancing ecohydrological partitioning into evapotranspiration for cooling and groundwater recharge. Quantifying how different vegetation types affect water partitioning is essential for future management, but paucity of data and the complex heterogeneity of urban areas make water balance estimates challenging. Here, we provide a preliminary assessment of water partitioning from different sized patches of trees and grass as well as from sealed surfaces. To do this, we used limited field observations together with an advanced, process‐based tracer‐aided ecohydrological model at a meso‐scale (5 km2) in central Berlin, Germany. Transpiration was the dominant green water flux accounting for over 50% of evapotranspiration in the modelled area. Green water fluxes were in general greater from trees compared with grass, but grass in large parks transpired more water compared with grass in small parks that were intensively used for recreation. Interception evaporation was larger for trees compared with grass, but soil water evaporation was greater for grass compared with trees. We also show that evapotranspiration from tree‐covered areas comprise almost 80% of the total evapotranspiration from the whole model domain while making up less than 30% of the surface cover. The results form an important stepping‐stone towards further upscaling over larger areas and highlights the importance of continuous high‐resolution hydrological measurements in the urban landscape, as well as the need for improvements to ecohydrological models to capture important urban processes.

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The complexities of urban flood response: Flood frequency analyses for the Charlotte metropolitan region

Cited by 53 publications

References 117 publications

The role of storm scale, position and movement in controlling urban flood response

The role of storm scale, position and movement in controlling urban flood response

Crossing the rural–urban boundary in hydrological modelling: How do conceptual rainfall–runoff models handle the specificities of urbanized catchments?

Estimates of water partitioning in complex urban landscapes with isotope‐aided ecohydrological modelling

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