Merz, B. and Aerts, J. and Arnbjerg-Nielsen, K. and Baldi, M. and Becker, A. and Bichet, A. and Blöschl, G. and Bouwer, L. M. and Brauer, A. and Cioffi, F. and Delgado, J. M. and Gocht, M. and Guzzetti, F. and Harrigan, Shaun and Hirschboeck, K. and Kilsby, C. and Kron, W. and Kwon, H.-H. and Lall, U. and Merz, R. and Nissen, K. and Salvatti, P. and Swierczynski, T. and Ulbrich, U. and Viglione, A. and Ward, P. J. and Weiler, M. and Wilhelm, B. and Nied, M. (2014) Floods and climate: emerging perspectives for flood risk assessment and management. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 14 (7). pp. 1921-1942. ISSN 1684-9981

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Abstract

Flood estimation and flood management have traditionally been the domain of hydrologists, water resources engineers and statisticians, and disciplinary approaches abound. Dominant views have been shaped; one example is the catchment perspective: floods are formed and influenced by the interaction of local, catchment-specific characteristics, such as meteorology, topography and geology.These traditional views have been beneficial, but they have a narrow framing. In this paper we contrast traditional views with broader perspectives that are emerging from an improved understanding of the climatic context of floods. We come to the following conclusions: (1) extending the traditional system boundaries (local catchment, recent decades,hydrological/hydraulic processes) opens up exciting possibilities for better understanding and improved tools for flood risk assessment and management. (2) Statistical approaches in flood estimation need to be complemented by the search for the causal mechanisms and dominant processes in the atmosphere, catchment and river system that leave their fingerprints on flood characteristics. (3) Natural climate variability leads to time-varying flood characteristics, and this variation may be partially quantifiable and predictable, with the perspective of dynamic, climate-informed flood risk management. (4) Efforts are needed to fully account for factors that contribute to changes in all three risk components (hazard, exposure, vulnerability) and to better understand the interactions between society and floods. (5) Given the global scale and societal importance, we call for the organization of an international multidisciplinary collaboration and data sharing initiative to further understand the links between climate and flooding and to advance flood research.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This paper is a result of the EGU topical meeting “Floods and Climate: Understanding and exploiting the link between floods and climate” held on 4–5 October 2012, at GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam. Financial support for this meeting by the European Geosciences Union, AXA Research Fund, Free University Berlin and geo.X is gratefully acknowledged. We would like to acknowledge the support of the ERC advanced grant “FloodChange”, project no. 291 152, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) project “Mountain Floods”.
Keywords:	floods; climate; flood management; flood risk management;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units, ICARUS
Item ID:	18760
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-14-1921-2014
Depositing User:	Corinne Voces
Date Deposited:	23 Sep 2024 08:19
Journal or Publication Title:	Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
Publisher:	Copernicus
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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