First look at changes in flood hazard in the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project ensemble

Dankers, Rutger; Arnell, Nigel W.; Clark, Douglas B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1348-7922; Falloon, Pete D.; Fekete, Balázs M.; Gosling, Simon N.; Heinke, Jens; Kim, Hyungjun; Masaki, Yoshimitsu; Satoh, Yusuke; Stacke, Tobias; Wada, Yoshihide; Wisser, Dominik. 2014 First look at changes in flood hazard in the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project ensemble. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111 (9). 3257-3261. 10.1073/pnas.1302078110

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Abstract/Summary

Climate change due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of precipitation events, which is likely to affect the probability of flooding into the future. In this paper we use river flow simulations from nine global hydrology and land surface models to explore uncertainties in the potential impacts of climate change on flood hazard at global scale. As an indicator of flood hazard we looked at changes in the 30-y return level of 5-d average peak flows under representative concentration pathway RCP8.5 at the end of this century. Not everywhere does climate change result in an increase in flood hazard: decreases in the magnitude and frequency of the 30-y return level of river flow occur at roughly one-third (20–45%) of the global land grid points, particularly in areas where the hydrograph is dominated by the snowmelt flood peak in spring. In most model experiments, however, an increase in flooding frequency was found in more than half of the grid points. The current 30-y flood peak is projected to occur in more than 1 in 5 y across 5–30% of land grid points. The large-scale patterns of change are remarkably consistent among impact models and even the driving climate models, but at local scale and in individual river basins there can be disagreement even on the sign of change, indicating large modeling uncertainty which needs to be taken into account in local adaptation studies.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1073/pnas.1302078110
Programmes:	CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Water > WA Topic 3 - Science for Water Management > WA - 3.3 - Better represent hydrological and biogeochemical processes in Earth System Models
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Reynard
ISSN:	0027-8424
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:	Freely available on the journal's website and at PubMed Central.
Additional Keywords:	climate impacts, river flows, extremes
NORA Subject Terms:	Hydrology
Date made live:	17 Dec 2013 14:58 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/503357

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