TY - JOUR

T1 - Causative classification of river flood events

AU - Tarasova, Larisa

AU - Merz, Ralf

AU - Kiss, Andrea

AU - Basso, Stefano

AU - Bloeschl, Guenter

AU - Merz, Bruno

AU - Viglione, Alberto

AU - Ploetner, Stefan

AU - Guse, Bjoern

AU - Schumann, Andreas

AU - Fischer, Svenja

AU - Ahrens, Bodo

AU - Anwar, Faizan

AU - Bardossy, Andras

AU - Buehler, Philipp

AU - Haberlandt, Uwe

AU - Kreibich, Heidi

AU - Krug, Amelie

AU - Lun, David

AU - Müller-Thomy, Hannes

AU - Pidoto, Ross

AU - Primo, Cristina

AU - Seidel, Jochen

AU - Vorogushyn, Sergiy

AU - Wietzke, Luzie

N1 - Funding Information: We thank all the participants of February 13–15, 2018 SPATE Symposium on “Flood typology” in Halle (Saale), Germany and Joint Workshop on Event Definition and Characterization on July 9–11, 2018 in Vienna, Austria for discussion and ideas that have inspired this review. We are grateful to S. Lane, J. Seibert, K.K. Hirschboeck, and one anonymous reviewer for valuable comments and suggestions that improved the manuscript. The financial support of the German Research Foundation (“Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft”, DFG) and the Austrian Science Fund (“Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung”, FWF) in terms of the research group FOR 2416 “Space-Time Dynamics of Extreme Floods (SPATE)” and subproject I 3174 is gratefully acknowledged. For Hannes Müller-Thomy the funding was provided as a Research Fellowship (MU 819 4257/1-1) by the German Research Foundation (“Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft”, DFG).

PY - 2019/6/14

Y1 - 2019/6/14

N2 - A wide variety of processes controls the time of occurrence, duration, extent, and severity of river floods. Classifying flood events by their causative processes may assist in enhancing the accuracy of local and regional flood frequency estimates and support the detection and interpretation of any changes in flood occurrence and magnitudes. This paper provides a critical review of existing causative classifications of instrumental and preinstrumental series of flood events, discusses their validity and applications, and identifies opportunities for moving toward more comprehensive approaches. So far no unified definition of causative mechanisms of flood events exists. Existing frameworks for classification of instrumental and preinstrumental series of flood events adopt different perspectives: hydroclimatic (large-scale circulation patterns and atmospheric state at the time of the event), hydrological (catchment scale precipitation patterns and antecedent catchment state), and hydrograph-based (indirectly considering generating mechanisms through their effects on hydrograph characteristics). All of these approaches intend to capture the flood generating mechanisms and are useful for characterizing the flood processes at various spatial and temporal scales. However, uncertainty analyses with respect to indicators, classification methods, and data to assess the robustness of the classification are rarely performed which limits the transferability across different geographic regions. It is argued that more rigorous testing is needed. There are opportunities for extending classification methods to include indicators of space–time dynamics of rainfall, antecedent wetness, and routing effects, which will make the classification schemes even more useful for understanding and estimating floods. This article is categorized under: Science of Water > Water Extremes Science of Water > Hydrological Processes Science of Water > Methods.

AB - A wide variety of processes controls the time of occurrence, duration, extent, and severity of river floods. Classifying flood events by their causative processes may assist in enhancing the accuracy of local and regional flood frequency estimates and support the detection and interpretation of any changes in flood occurrence and magnitudes. This paper provides a critical review of existing causative classifications of instrumental and preinstrumental series of flood events, discusses their validity and applications, and identifies opportunities for moving toward more comprehensive approaches. So far no unified definition of causative mechanisms of flood events exists. Existing frameworks for classification of instrumental and preinstrumental series of flood events adopt different perspectives: hydroclimatic (large-scale circulation patterns and atmospheric state at the time of the event), hydrological (catchment scale precipitation patterns and antecedent catchment state), and hydrograph-based (indirectly considering generating mechanisms through their effects on hydrograph characteristics). All of these approaches intend to capture the flood generating mechanisms and are useful for characterizing the flood processes at various spatial and temporal scales. However, uncertainty analyses with respect to indicators, classification methods, and data to assess the robustness of the classification are rarely performed which limits the transferability across different geographic regions. It is argued that more rigorous testing is needed. There are opportunities for extending classification methods to include indicators of space–time dynamics of rainfall, antecedent wetness, and routing effects, which will make the classification schemes even more useful for understanding and estimating floods. This article is categorized under: Science of Water > Water Extremes Science of Water > Hydrological Processes Science of Water > Methods.

KW - flood genesis

KW - flood mechanisms

KW - flood typology

KW - historical floods

KW - hydroclimatology of floods

KW - Flood mechanisms

KW - Flood genesis

KW - Flood typology

KW - Historical floods

KW - Hydroclimatology of floods

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85120718049&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/wat2.1353

DO - 10.1002/wat2.1353

M3 - Review article

VL - 6

JO - WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS-WATER

JF - WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS-WATER

SN - 2049-1948

IS - 4

M1 - e1353

ER -