Spatial dependence in extreme river flows and precipitation for Great Britain

Keef, Caroline; Svensson, Cecilia ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9294-5826; Tawn, Jonathan A.. 2009 Spatial dependence in extreme river flows and precipitation for Great Britain. Journal of Hydrology, 378 (3-4). 240-252. 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.09.026

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.09.026

Abstract/Summary

For the co-ordination of flood mitigation activities and for the insurance and re-insurance industries, knowledge of the spatial characteristics of fluvial flooding is important. Past research into the spatio-temporal risk of fluvial flooding is restricted to empirical estimates of risk measures and hence estimates cannot be obtained for return periods longer than the length of the concurrent data at the sites of interest in the sample.We adopt a model-based approach which describes the multisite joint distribution of daily mean river flows and daily precipitation totals. A measure of spatial dependence is mapped across Great Britain for each variable separately. Given that an extreme event has occurred at one site, the measure characterises the extent to which neighbouring locations are affected. For both river flow and precipitation we are able to quantify how events become more localised in space as the return periods of these events get longer at a site of interest. For precipitation, spatial dependence is weaker in the upland areas of Great Britain. For river flows the major factor affecting spatial dependence appears to be differences in catchment characteristics with areas with diverse catchments exhibiting lower levels of dependence.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.09.026
Programmes:	CEH Programmes pre-2009 publications > Water > WA01 Water extremes > WA01.1 New methodologies to quantify floods, flows and droughts CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Water > WA Topic 3 - Science for Water Management > WA - 3.1 - Develop next generation methods for river flow frequency estimation and forecasting
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Boorman (to September 2014)
ISSN:	0022-1694
Additional Keywords:	extreme value theory, multivariate extreme values, precipitation, river flow, spatial dependence
NORA Subject Terms:	Meteorology and Climatology Hydrology
Date made live:	17 Dec 2009 11:42 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/8814

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.09.026

Programmes:

CEH Programmes pre-2009 publications > Water > WA01 Water extremes > WA01.1 New methodologies to quantify floods, flows and droughts
CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Water > WA Topic 3 - Science for Water Management > WA - 3.1 - Develop next generation methods for river flow frequency estimation and forecasting

UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:

Boorman (to September 2014)

ISSN:

0022-1694

Additional Keywords:

extreme value theory, multivariate extreme values, precipitation, river flow, spatial dependence