Weather Typing-Based Flood Frequency Analysis Verified for Exceptional Historical Events of Past 500 Years Along the Meuse River

Autor: J. De Niel, Patrick Willems, G. Demarée
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: Water Resources Research. 53:8459-8474
ISSN: 0043-1397
DOI: 10.1002/2017wr020803
Popis: Governments, policy makers and water managers are pushed by recent socio-economic developments such as population growth and increased urbanization inclusive of occupation of floodplains to impose very stringent regulations on the design of hydrological structures. These structures need to withstand storms with return periods typically ranging between 1,250 and 10,000 years. Such quantification involves extrapolations of systematically measured instrumental data, possibly complemented by quantitative and/or qualitative historical data and paleoflood data. The accuracy of the extrapolations is, however, highly unclear in practice. In order to evaluate extreme river peak flow extrapolation and accuracy, we studied historical and instrumental data of the past 500 years along the Meuse river. We moreover propose an alternative method for the estimation of the extreme value distribution of river peak flows, based on weather types derived by sea level pressure reconstructions. This approach results in a more accurate estimation of the tail of the distribution, where current methods are underestimating the design levels related to extreme high return periods. The design flood for a 1,250 year return period is estimated at 4,800 m3s−1 for the proposed method, compared with 3,450 m3s−1 and 3,900 m3s−1 for a traditional method and a previous study.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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