TY - JOUR A1 - Merz, Bruno A1 - Viet Dung Nguyen, A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy T1 - Temporal clustering of floods in Germany: Do flood-rich and flood-poor periods exist? JF - Journal of hydrology N2 - The repeated occurrence of exceptional floods within a few years, such as the Rhine floods in 1993 and 1995 and the Elbe and Danube floods in 2002 and 2013, suggests that floods in Central Europe may be organized in flood-rich and flood-poor periods. This hypothesis is studied by testing the significance of temporal clustering in flood occurrence (peak-over-threshold) time series for 68 catchments across Germany for the period 1932-2005. To assess the robustness of the results, different methods are used: Firstly, the index of dispersion, which quantifies the departure from a homogeneous Poisson process, is investigated. Further, the time-variation of the flood occurrence rate is derived by non-parametric kernel implementation and the significance of clustering is evaluated via parametric and non-parametric tests. Although the methods give consistent overall results, the specific results differ considerably. Hence, we recommend applying different methods when investigating flood clustering. For flood estimation and risk management, it is of relevance to understand whether clustering changes with flood severity and time scale. To this end, clustering is assessed for different thresholds and time scales. It is found that the majority of catchments show temporal clustering at the 5% significance level for low thresholds and time scales of one to a few years. However, clustering decreases substantially with increasing threshold and time scale. We hypothesize that flood clustering in Germany is mainly caused by catchment memory effects along with intra- to inter-annual climate variability, and that decadal climate variability plays a minor role. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Climate variability KW - Flooding KW - Temporal clustering KW - Index of dispersion KW - Kernel occurrence rate Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.07.041 SN - 0022-1694 SN - 1879-2707 VL - 541 SP - 824 EP - 838 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Murawski, Aline A1 - Bürger, Gerd A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Merz, Bruno T1 - Can local climate variability be explained by weather patterns? A multi-station evaluation for the Rhine basin JF - Hydrology and earth system sciences : HESS N2 - To understand past flood changes in the Rhine catchment and in particular the role of anthropogenic climate change in extreme flows, an attribution study relying on a proper GCM (general circulation model) downscaling is needed. A downscaling based on conditioning a stochastic weather generator on weather patterns is a promising approach. This approach assumes a strong link between weather patterns and local climate, and sufficient GCM skill in reproducing weather pattern climatology. These presuppositions are unprecedentedly evaluated here using 111 years of daily climate data from 490 stations in the Rhine basin and comprehensively testing the number of classification parameters and GCM weather pattern characteristics. A classification based on a combination of mean sea level pressure, temperature, and humidity from the ERA20C reanalysis of atmospheric fields over central Europe with 40 weather types was found to be the most appropriate for stratifying six local climate variables. The corresponding skill is quite diverse though, ranging from good for radiation to poor for precipitation. Especially for the latter it was apparent that pressure fields alone cannot sufficiently stratify local variability. To test the skill of the latest generation of GCMs from the CMIP5 ensemble in reproducing the frequency, seasonality, and persistence of the derived weather patterns, output from 15 GCMs is evaluated. Most GCMs are able to capture these characteristics well, but some models showed consistent deviations in all three evaluation criteria and should be excluded from further attribution analysis. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-4283-2016 SN - 1027-5606 SN - 1607-7938 VL - 20 SP - 4283 EP - 4306 PB - Copernicus CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Merz, Bruno A1 - Nguyen, Viet Dung A1 - Apel, Heiko A1 - Gerlitz, Lars A1 - Schröter, Kai A1 - Steirou, Eva Styliani A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy T1 - Spatial coherence of flood-rich and flood-poor periods across Germany JF - Journal of hydrology N2 - Despite its societal relevance, the question whether fluctuations in flood occurrence or magnitude are coherent in space has hardly been addressed in quantitative terms. We investigate this question for Germany by analysing fluctuations in annual maximum series (AMS) values at 68 discharge gauges for the common time period 1932-2005. We find remarkable spatial coherence across Germany given its different flood regimes. For example, there is a tendency that flood-rich/-poor years in sub-catchments of the Rhine basin, which are dominated by winter floods, coincide with flood-rich/-poor years in the southern sub-catchments of the Danube basin, which have their dominant flood season in summer. Our findings indicate that coherence is caused rather by persistence in catchment wetness than by persistent periods of higher/lower event precipitation. Further, we propose to differentiate between event-type and non-event-type coherence. There are quite a number of hydrological years with considerable nonevent-type coherence, i.e. AMS values of the 68 gauges are spread out through the year but in the same magnitude range. Years with extreme flooding tend to be of event-type and non-coherent, i.e. there is at least one precipitation event that affects many catchments to various degree. Although spatial coherence is a remarkable phenomenon, and large-scale flooding across Germany can lead to severe situations, extreme magnitudes across the whole country within one event or within one year were not observed in the investigated period. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Flood timing KW - Spatial coherence KW - Flood regimes KW - Climate variability KW - Catchment wetness Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.02.082 SN - 0022-1694 SN - 1879-2707 VL - 559 SP - 813 EP - 826 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - He, Zhihua A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Unger-Shayesteh, Katy A1 - Gafurov, Abror A1 - Kalashnikova, Olga A1 - Omorova, Elvira A1 - Merz, Bruno T1 - The Value of Hydrograph Partitioning Curves for Calibrating Hydrological Models in Glacierized Basins JF - Water resources research N2 - This study refines the method for calibrating a glacio-hydrological model based on Hydrograph Partitioning Curves (HPCs), and evaluates its value in comparison to multidata set optimization approaches which use glacier mass balance, satellite snow cover images, and discharge. The HPCs are extracted from the observed flow hydrograph using catchment precipitation and temperature gradients. They indicate the periods when the various runoff processes, such as glacier melt or snow melt, dominate the basin hydrograph. The annual cumulative curve of the difference between average daily temperature and melt threshold temperature over the basin, as well as the annual cumulative curve of average daily snowfall on the glacierized areas are used to identify the starting and end dates of snow and glacier ablation periods. Model parameters characterizing different runoff processes are calibrated on different HPCs in a stepwise and iterative way. Results show that the HPC-based method (1) delivers model-internal consistency comparably to the tri-data set calibration method; (2) improves the stability of calibrated parameter values across various calibration periods; and (3) estimates the contributions of runoff components similarly to the tri-data set calibration method. Our findings indicate the potential of the HPC-based approach as an alternative for hydrological model calibration in glacierized basins where other calibration data sets than discharge are often not available or very costly to obtain. KW - hydrograph partitioning curves KW - model calibration KW - glacierized basins Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/2017WR021966 SN - 0043-1397 SN - 1944-7973 VL - 54 IS - 3 SP - 2336 EP - 2361 PB - American Geophysical Union CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Metin, Ayse Duha A1 - Dung, Nguyen Viet A1 - Schröter, Kai A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Guse, Björn A1 - Kreibich, Heidi A1 - Merz, Bruno T1 - The role of spatial dependence for large-scale flood risk estimation JF - Natural hazards and earth system sciences N2 - Flood risk assessments are typically based on scenarios which assume homogeneous return periods of flood peaks throughout the catchment. This assumption is unrealistic for real flood events and may bias risk estimates for specific return periods. We investigate how three assumptions about the spatial dependence affect risk estimates: (i) spatially homogeneous scenarios (complete dependence), (ii) spatially heterogeneous scenarios (modelled dependence) and (iii) spatially heterogeneous but uncorrelated scenarios (complete independence). To this end, the model chain RFM (regional flood model) is applied to the Elbe catchment in Germany, accounting for the spatio-temporal dynamics of all flood generation processes, from the rainfall through catchment and river system processes to damage mechanisms. Different assumptions about the spatial dependence do not influence the expected annual damage (EAD); however, they bias the risk curve, i.e. the cumulative distribution function of damage. The widespread assumption of complete dependence strongly overestimates flood damage of the order of 100% for return periods larger than approximately 200 years. On the other hand, for small and medium floods with return periods smaller than approximately 50 years, damage is underestimated. The overestimation aggravates when risk is estimated for larger areas. This study demonstrates the importance of representing the spatial dependence of flood peaks and damage for risk assessments. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-967-2020 SN - 1561-8633 SN - 1684-9981 VL - 20 IS - 4 SP - 967 EP - 979 PB - European Geosciences Union (EGU) ; Copernicus CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kreibich, Heidi A1 - Di Baldassarre, Giuliano A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H. A1 - Apel, Heiko A1 - Aronica, Giuseppe T. A1 - Arnbjerg-Nielsen, Karsten A1 - Bouwer, Laurens M. A1 - Bubeck, Philip A1 - Caloiero, Tommaso A1 - Chinh, Do T. A1 - Cortes, Maria A1 - Gain, Animesh K. A1 - Giampa, Vincenzo A1 - Kuhlicke, Christian A1 - Kundzewicz, Zbigniew W. A1 - Llasat, Maria Carmen A1 - Mard, Johanna A1 - Matczak, Piotr A1 - Mazzoleni, Maurizio A1 - Molinari, Daniela A1 - Dung, Nguyen V. A1 - Petrucci, Olga A1 - Schröter, Kai A1 - Slager, Kymo A1 - Thieken, Annegret A1 - Ward, Philip J. A1 - Merz, Bruno T1 - Adaptation to flood risk BT - Results of international paired flood event studies JF - Earth's Future N2 - As flood impacts are increasing in large parts of the world, understanding the primary drivers of changes in risk is essential for effective adaptation. To gain more knowledge on the basis of empirical case studies, we analyze eight paired floods, that is, consecutive flood events that occurred in the same region, with the second flood causing significantly lower damage. These success stories of risk reduction were selected across different socioeconomic and hydro-climatic contexts. The potential of societies to adapt is uncovered by describing triggered societal changes, as well as formal measures and spontaneous processes that reduced flood risk. This novel approach has the potential to build the basis for an international data collection and analysis effort to better understand and attribute changes in risk due to hydrological extremes in the framework of the IAHSs Panta Rhei initiative. Across all case studies, we find that lower damage caused by the second event was mainly due to significant reductions in vulnerability, for example, via raised risk awareness, preparedness, and improvements of organizational emergency management. Thus, vulnerability reduction plays an essential role for successful adaptation. Our work shows that there is a high potential to adapt, but there remains the challenge to stimulate measures that reduce vulnerability and risk in periods in which extreme events do not occur. KW - flooding KW - vulnerability KW - global environmental change KW - adaptation Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/2017EF000606 SN - 2328-4277 VL - 5 SP - 953 EP - 965 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tarasova, Larisa A1 - Merz, Ralf A1 - Kiss, Andrea A1 - Basso, Stefano A1 - Blöchl, Günter A1 - Merz, Bruno A1 - Viglione, Alberto A1 - Plötner, Stefan A1 - Guse, Björn A1 - Schumann, Andreas A1 - Fischer, Svenja A1 - Ahrens, Bodo A1 - Anwar, Faizan A1 - Bárdossy, András A1 - Bühler, Philipp A1 - Haberlandt, Uwe A1 - Kreibich, Heidi A1 - Krug, Amelie A1 - Lun, David A1 - Müller-Thomy, Hannes A1 - Pidoto, Ross A1 - Primo, Cristina A1 - Seidel, Jochen A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Wietzke, Luzie T1 - Causative classification of river flood events JF - Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews : Water 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 KW - flood genesis KW - flood mechanisms KW - flood typology KW - historical floods KW - hydroclimatology of floods Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1353 SN - 2049-1948 VL - 6 IS - 4 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gerlitz, Lars A1 - Steirou, Eva A1 - Schneider, Christoph A1 - Moron, Vincent A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Merz, Bruno T1 - Variability of the Cold Season Climate in Central Asia. Part II: Hydroclimatic Predictability JF - Journal of climate N2 - Central Asia (CA) is subjected to a large variability of precipitation. This study presents a statistical model, relating precipitation anomalies in three subregions of CA in the cold season (November-March) with various predictors in the preceding October. Promising forecast skill is achieved for two subregions covering 1) Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and southern Kazakhstan and 2) Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. ENSO in October is identified as the major predictor. Eurasian snow cover and the quasi-biennial oscillation further improve the forecast performance. To understand the physical mechanisms, an analysis of teleconnections between these predictors and the wintertime circulation over CA is conducted. The correlation analysis of predictors and large-scale circulation indices suggests a seasonal persistence of tropical circulation modes and a dynamical forcing of the westerly circulation by snow cover variations over Eurasia. An EOF analysis of pressure and humidity patterns allows separating the circulation variability over CA into westerly and tropical modes and confirms that the identified predictors affect the respective circulation characteristics. Based on the previously established weather type classification for CA, the predictors are investigated with regard to their effect on the regional circulation. The results suggest a modification of the Hadley cell due to ENSO variations, with enhanced moisture supply from the Arabian Gulf during El Nino. They further indicate an influence of Eurasian snow cover on the wintertime Arctic Oscillation (AO) and Northern Hemispheric Rossby wave tracks. Positive anomalies favor weather types associated with dry conditions, while negative anomalies promote the formation of a quasi-stationary trough over CA, which typically occurs during positive AO conditions. KW - Asia KW - Climate prediction KW - Seasonal forecasting KW - North Atlantic Oscillation KW - Southern Oscillation Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0892.1 SN - 0894-8755 SN - 1520-0442 VL - 32 IS - 18 SP - 6015 EP - 6033 PB - American Meteorological Soc. CY - Boston ER - TY - JOUR A1 - He, Zhihua A1 - Unger-Shayesteh, Katy A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Weise, Stephan M. A1 - Kalashnikova, Olga A1 - Gafurov, Abror A1 - Duethmann, Doris A1 - Barandun, Martina A1 - Merz, Bruno T1 - Constraining hydrological model parameters using water isotopic compositions in a glacierized basin, Central Asia JF - Journal of hydrology N2 - Water stable isotope signatures can provide valuable insights into the catchment internal runoff processes. However, the ability of the water isotope data to constrain the internal apportionments of runoff components in hydrological models for glacierized basins is not well understood. This study developed an approach to simultaneously model the water stable isotopic compositions and runoff processes in a glacierized basin in Central Asia. The fractionation and mixing processes of water stable isotopes in and from the various water sources were integrated into a glacio-hydrological model. The model parameters were calibrated on discharge, snow cover and glacier mass balance data, and additionally isotopic composition of streamflow. We investigated the value of water isotopic compositions for the calibration of model parameters, in comparison to calibration methods without using such measurements. Results indicate that: (1) The proposed isotope-hydrological integrated modeling approach was able to reproduce the isotopic composition of streamflow, and improved the model performance in the evaluation period; (2) Involving water isotopic composition for model calibration reduced the model parameter uncertainty, and helped to reduce the uncertainty in the quantification of runoff components; (3) The isotope-hydrological integrated modeling approach quantified the contributions of runoff components comparably to a three-component tracer-based end-member mixing analysis method for summer peak flows, and required less water tracer data. Our findings demonstrate the value of water isotopic compositions to improve the quantification of runoff components using hydrological models in glacierized basins. KW - Water stable isotope KW - Isotope-hydrological integrated modeling KW - Quantification of runoff components KW - Glacierized basins Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2019.01.048 SN - 0022-1694 SN - 1879-2707 VL - 571 SP - 332 EP - 348 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - GEN A1 - Metin, Ayse Duha A1 - Dung, Nguyen Viet A1 - Schröter, Kai A1 - Guse, Björn A1 - Apel, Heiko A1 - Kreibich, Heidi A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Merz, Bruno T1 - How do changes along the risk chain affect flood risk? T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Flood risk is impacted by a range of physical and socio-economic processes. Hence, the quantification of flood risk ideally considers the complete flood risk chain, from atmospheric processes through catchment and river system processes to damage mechanisms in the affected areas. Although it is generally accepted that a multitude of changes along the risk chain can occur and impact flood risk, there is a lack of knowledge of how and to what extent changes in influencing factors propagate through the chain and finally affect flood risk. To fill this gap, we present a comprehensive sensitivity analysis which considers changes in all risk components, i.e. changes in climate, catchment, river system, land use, assets, and vulnerability. The application of this framework to the mesoscale Mulde catchment in Germany shows that flood risk can vary dramatically as a consequence of plausible change scenarios. It further reveals that components that have not received much attention, such as changes in dike systems or in vulnerability, may outweigh changes in often investigated components, such as climate. Although the specific results are conditional on the case study area and the selected assumptions, they emphasize the need for a broader consideration of potential drivers of change in a comprehensive way. Hence, our approach contributes to a better understanding of how the different risk components influence the overall flood risk. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1067 KW - global sensitivity analysis KW - climate change KW - river floods KW - frequency KW - Europe KW - model KW - vulnerability KW - adaptation KW - strategies KW - catchment Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-468790 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 1067 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Murawski, Aline A1 - Bürger, Gerd A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Merz, Bruno T1 - Can local climate variability be explained by weather patterns? BT - a multi-station evaluation for the Rhine basin T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - To understand past flood changes in the Rhine catchment and in particular the role of anthropogenic climate change in extreme flows, an attribution study relying on a proper GCM (general circulation model) downscaling is needed. A downscaling based on conditioning a stochastic weather generator on weather patterns is a promising approach. This approach assumes a strong link between weather patterns and local climate, and sufficient GCM skill in reproducing weather pattern climatology. These presuppositions are unprecedentedly evaluated here using 111 years of daily climate data from 490 stations in the Rhine basin and comprehensively testing the number of classification parameters and GCM weather pattern characteristics. A classification based on a combination of mean sea level pressure, temperature, and humidity from the ERA20C reanalysis of atmospheric fields over central Europe with 40 weather types was found to be the most appropriate for stratifying six local climate variables. The corresponding skill is quite diverse though, ranging from good for radiation to poor for precipitation. Especially for the latter it was apparent that pressure fields alone cannot sufficiently stratify local variability. To test the skill of the latest generation of GCMs from the CMIP5 ensemble in reproducing the frequency, seasonality, and persistence of the derived weather patterns, output from 15 GCMs is evaluated. Most GCMs are able to capture these characteristics well, but some models showed consistent deviations in all three evaluation criteria and should be excluded from further attribution analysis. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 525 KW - athmospheric circulation patterns KW - stochastic rainfall model KW - within-type variability KW - river Rhine KW - precipitation KW - temperature KW - trends KW - classification KW - Europe KW - scenarios Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-410155 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 525 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sairam, Nivedita A1 - Brill, Fabio Alexander A1 - Sieg, Tobias A1 - Farrag, Mostafa A1 - Kellermann, Patric A1 - Viet Dung Nguyen, A1 - Lüdtke, Stefan A1 - Merz, Bruno A1 - Schröter, Kai A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Kreibich, Heidi T1 - Process-based flood risk assessment for Germany JF - Earth's future / American Geophysical Union N2 - Large-scale flood risk assessments are crucial for decision making, especially with respect to new flood defense schemes, adaptation planning and estimating insurance premiums. We apply the process-based Regional Flood Model (RFM) to simulate a 5000-year flood event catalog for all major catchments in Germany and derive risk curves based on the losses per economic sector. The RFM uses a continuous process simulation including a multisite, multivariate weather generator, a hydrological model considering heterogeneous catchment processes, a coupled 1D-2D hydrodynamic model considering dike overtopping and hinterland storage, spatially explicit sector-wise exposure data and empirical multi-variable loss models calibrated for Germany. For all components, uncertainties in the data and models are estimated. We estimate the median Expected Annual Damage (EAD) and Value at Risk at 99.5% confidence for Germany to be euro0.529 bn and euro8.865 bn, respectively. The commercial sector dominates by making about 60% of the total risk, followed by the residential sector. The agriculture sector gets affected by small return period floods and only contributes to less than 3% to the total risk. The overall EAD is comparable to other large-scale estimates. However, the estimation of losses for specific return periods is substantially improved. The spatial consistency of the risk estimates avoids the large overestimation of losses for rare events that is common in other large-scale assessments with homogeneous return periods. Thus, the process-based, spatially consistent flood risk assessment by RFM is an important step forward and will serve as a benchmark for future German-wide flood risk assessments. KW - risk model chain KW - continuous simulation KW - expected annual damage KW - risk KW - curves KW - multi-sector risk Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EF002259 SN - 2328-4277 VL - 9 IS - 10 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken, NJ ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Winter, Benjamin A1 - Schneeberger, Klaus A1 - Dung, N. V. A1 - Huttenlau, M. A1 - Achleitner, S. A1 - Stötter, J. A1 - Merz, Bruno A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy T1 - A continuous modelling approach for design flood estimation on sub-daily time scale JF - Hydrological sciences journal = Journal des sciences hydrologiques N2 - Design flood estimation is an essential part of flood risk assessment. Commonly applied are flood frequency analyses and design storm approaches, while the derived flood frequency using continuous simulation has been getting more attention recently. In this study, a continuous hydrological modelling approach on an hourly time scale, driven by a multi-site weather generator in combination with a -nearest neighbour resampling procedure, based on the method of fragments, is applied. The derived 100-year flood estimates in 16 catchments in Vorarlberg (Austria) are compared to (a) the flood frequency analysis based on observed discharges, and (b) a design storm approach. Besides the peak flows, the corresponding runoff volumes are analysed. The spatial dependence structure of the synthetically generated flood peaks is validated against observations. It can be demonstrated that the continuous modelling approach can achieve plausible results and shows a large variability in runoff volume across the flood events. KW - derived flood frequency KW - continuous modelling KW - temporal disaggregation KW - flood hazard KW - synthetic flood events Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2019.1593419 SN - 0262-6667 SN - 2150-3435 VL - 64 IS - 5 SP - 539 EP - 554 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Macdonald, Elena A1 - Merz, Bruno A1 - Guse, Björn A1 - Wietzke, Luzie A1 - Ullrich, Sophie A1 - Kemter, Matthias A1 - Ahrens, Bodo A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy T1 - Event and catchment controls of heavy tail behavior of floods JF - Water resources research N2 - In some catchments, the distribution of annual maximum streamflow shows heavy tail behavior, meaning the occurrence probability of extreme events is higher than if the upper tail decayed exponentially. Neglecting heavy tail behavior can lead to an underestimation of the likelihood of extreme floods and the associated risk. Partly contradictory results regarding the controls of heavy tail behavior exist in the literature and the knowledge is still very dispersed and limited. To better understand the drivers, we analyze the upper tail behavior and its controls for 480 catchments in Germany and Austria over a period of more than 50 years. The catchments span from quickly reacting mountain catchments to large lowland catchments, allowing for general conclusions. We compile a wide range of event and catchment characteristics and investigate their association with an indicator of the tail heaviness of flood distributions, namely the shape parameter of the GEV distribution. Following univariate analyses of these characteristics, along with an evaluation of different aggregations of event characteristics, multiple linear regression models, as well as random forests, are constructed. A novel slope indicator, which represents the relation between the return period of flood peaks and event characteristics, captures the controls of heavy tails best. Variables describing the catchment response are found to dominate the heavy tail behavior, followed by event precipitation, flood seasonality, and catchment size. The pre-event moisture state in a catchment has no relevant impact on the tail heaviness even though it does influence flood magnitudes. KW - heavy tail behavior KW - floods KW - event characteristics KW - catchment KW - characteristics KW - catchment response Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2021WR031260 SN - 0043-1397 SN - 1944-7973 VL - 58 IS - 6 PB - American Geophysical Union CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Barendrecht, Marlies H. A1 - Viglione, Alberto A1 - Kreibich, Heidi A1 - Merz, Bruno A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Blöschl, G. T1 - The Value of Empirical Data for Estimating the Parameters of a Sociohydrological Flood Risk Model JF - Water resources research N2 - In this paper, empirical data are used to estimate the parameters of a sociohydrological flood risk model. The proposed model, which describes the interactions between floods, settlement density, awareness, preparedness, and flood loss, is based on the literature. Data for the case study of Dresden, Germany, over a period of 200years, are used to estimate the model parameters through Bayesian inference. The credibility bounds of their estimates are small, even though the data are rather uncertain. A sensitivity analysis is performed to examine the value of the different data sources in estimating the model parameters. In general, the estimated parameters are less biased when using data at the end of the modeled period. Data about flood awareness are the most important to correctly estimate the parameters of this model and to correctly model the system dynamics. Using more data for other variables cannot compensate for the absence of awareness data. More generally, the absence of data mostly affects the estimation of the parameters that are directly related to the variable for which data are missing. This paper demonstrates that combining sociohydrological modeling and empirical data gives additional insights into the sociohydrological system, such as quantifying the forgetfulness of the society, which would otherwise not be easily achieved by sociohydrological models without data or by standard statistical analysis of empirical data. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR024128 SN - 0043-1397 SN - 1944-7973 VL - 55 IS - 2 SP - 1312 EP - 1336 PB - American Geophysical Union CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Merz, Bruno A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Lall, Upmanu A1 - Viglione, Alberto A1 - Blöschl, Günter T1 - Charting unknown waters-On the role of surprise in flood risk assessment and management JF - Water resources research N2 - Unexpected incidents, failures, and disasters are abundant in the history of flooding events. In this paper, we introduce the metaphors of terra incognita and terra maligna to illustrate unknown and wicked flood situations, respectively. We argue that surprise is a neglected element in flood risk assessment and management. Two sources of surprise are identified: (1) the complexity of flood risk systems, represented by nonlinearities, interdependencies, and nonstationarities and (2) cognitive biases in human perception and decision making. Flood risk assessment and management are particularly prone to cognitive biases due to the rarity and uniqueness of extremes, and the nature of human risk perception. We reflect on possible approaches to better understanding and reducing the potential for surprise and its adverse consequences which may be supported by conceptually charting maps that separate terra incognita from terra cognita, and terra maligna from terra benigna. We conclude that flood risk assessment and management should account for the potential for surprise and devastating consequences which will require a shift in thinking. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR017464 SN - 0043-1397 SN - 1944-7973 VL - 51 IS - 8 SP - 6399 EP - 6416 PB - American Geophysical Union CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Duethmann, Doris A1 - Bolch, Tobias A1 - Farinotti, Daniel A1 - Kriegel, David A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Merz, Bruno A1 - Pieczonka, Tino A1 - Jiang, Tong A1 - Su, Buda A1 - Güntner, Andreas T1 - Attribution of streamflow trends in snow and glacier melt-dominated catchments of the Tarim River, Central Asia JF - Water resources research N2 - Observed streamflow of headwater catchments of the Tarim River (Central Asia) increased by about 30% over the period 1957-2004. This study aims at assessing to which extent these streamflow trends can be attributed to changes in air temperature or precipitation. The analysis includes a data-based approach using multiple linear regression and a simulation-based approach using a hydrological model. The hydrological model considers changes in both glacier area and surface elevation. It was calibrated using a multiobjective optimization algorithm with calibration criteria based on glacier mass balance and daily and interannual variations of discharge. The individual contributions to the overall streamflow trends from changes in glacier geometry, temperature, and precipitation were assessed using simulation experiments with a constant glacier geometry and with detrended temperature and precipitation time series. The results showed that the observed changes in streamflow were consistent with the changes in temperature and precipitation. In the Sari-Djaz catchment, increasing temperatures and related increase of glacier melt were identified as the dominant driver, while in the Kakshaal catchment, both increasing temperatures and increasing precipitation played a major role. Comparing the two approaches, an advantage of the simulation-based approach is the fact that it is based on process-based relationships implemented in the hydrological model instead of statistical links in the regression model. However, data-based approaches are less affected by model parameter and structural uncertainties and typically fast to apply. A complementary application of both approaches is recommended. KW - trend analysis KW - data-based KW - simulation-based KW - multiobjective calibration KW - hydrological modeling KW - glacier melt Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/2014WR016716 SN - 0043-1397 SN - 1944-7973 VL - 51 IS - 6 SP - 4727 EP - 4750 PB - American Geophysical Union CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Metin, Ayse Duha A1 - Nguyen Viet Dung, A1 - Schröter, Kai A1 - Guse, Björn A1 - Apel, Heiko A1 - Kreibich, Heidi A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Merz, Bruno T1 - How do changes along the risk chain affect flood risk? JF - Natural hazards and earth system sciences N2 - Flood risk is impacted by a range of physical and socio-economic processes. Hence, the quantification of flood risk ideally considers the complete flood risk chain, from atmospheric processes through catchment and river system processes to damage mechanisms in the affected areas. Although it is generally accepted that a multitude of changes along the risk chain can occur and impact flood risk, there is a lack of knowledge of how and to what extent changes in influencing factors propagate through the chain and finally affect flood risk. To fill this gap, we present a comprehensive sensitivity analysis which considers changes in all risk components, i.e. changes in climate, catchment, river system, land use, assets, and vulnerability. The application of this framework to the mesoscale Mulde catchment in Germany shows that flood risk can vary dramatically as a consequence of plausible change scenarios. It further reveals that components that have not received much attention, such as changes in dike systems or in vulnerability, may outweigh changes in often investigated components, such as climate. Although the specific results are conditional on the case study area and the selected assumptions, they emphasize the need for a broader consideration of potential drivers of change in a comprehensive way. Hence, our approach contributes to a better understanding of how the different risk components influence the overall flood risk. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-3089-2018 SN - 1561-8633 SN - 1684-9981 VL - 18 IS - 11 SP - 3089 EP - 3108 PB - Copernicus CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Murawski, Aline A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy A1 - Bürger, Gerd A1 - Gerlitz, Lars A1 - Merz, Bruno T1 - Do changing weather types explain observed climatic trends in the rhine basin? BT - an analysis of within- and between-type changes JF - Journal of geophysical of geophysical research-atmosheres N2 - For attributing hydrological changes to anthropogenic climate change, catchment models are driven by climate model output. A widespread approach to bridge the spatial gap between global climate and hydrological catchment models is to use a weather generator conditioned on weather patterns (WPs). This approach assumes that changes in local climate are characterized by between-type changes of patterns. In this study we test this assumption by analyzing a previously developed WP classification for the Rhine basin, which is based on dynamic and thermodynamic variables. We quantify changes in pattern characteristics and associated climatic properties. The amount of between- and within-type changes is investigated by comparing observed trends to trends resulting solely from WP occurrence. To overcome uncertainties in trend detection resulting from the selected time period, all possible periods in 1901-2010 with a minimum length of 31 years are analyzed. Increasing frequency is found for some patterns associated with high precipitation, although the trend sign highly depends on the considered period. Trends and interannual variations of WP frequencies are related to the long-term variability of large-scale circulation modes. Long-term WP internal warming is evident for summer patterns and enhanced warming for spring/autumn patterns since the 1970s. Observed trends in temperature and partly in precipitation are mainly associated with frequency changes of specific WPs, but some amount of within-type changes remains. The classification can be used for downscaling of past changes considering this limitation, but the inclusion of thermodynamic variables into the classification impedes the downscaling of future climate projections. KW - attribution KW - weather pattern KW - trend analysis KW - downscaling KW - hypothetical trend Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JD026654 SN - 2169-897X SN - 2169-8996 VL - 123 IS - 3 SP - 1562 EP - 1584 PB - American Geophysical Union CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Merz, Bruno A1 - Apel, Heiko A1 - Dung Nguyen, Viet-Dung A1 - Falter, Daniela A1 - Guse, Björn A1 - Hundecha, Yeshewatesfa A1 - Kreibich, Heidi A1 - Schröter, Kai A1 - Vorogushyn, Sergiy T1 - From precipitation to damage BT - a coupled model chain for spatially coherent, large-scale flood risk assessment JF - Global flood hazard : applications in modeling, mapping and forecasting N2 - Flood risk assessments for large river basins often involve piecing together smaller-scale assessments leading to erroneous risk statements. We describe a coupled model chain for quantifying flood risk at the scale of 100,000 km(2). It consists of a catchment model, a 1D-2D river network model, and a loss model. We introduce the model chain and present two applications. The first application for the Elbe River basin with an area of 66,000 km(2) demonstrates that it is feasible to simulate the complete risk chain for large river basins in a continuous simulation mode with high temporal and spatial resolution. In the second application, RFM is coupled to a multisite weather generator and applied to the Mulde catchment with an area of 6,000 km(2). This approach is able to provide a very long time series of spatially heterogeneous patterns of precipitation, discharge, inundation, and damage. These patterns respect the spatial correlation of the different processes and are suitable to derive large-scale risk estimates. We discuss how the RFM approach can be transferred to the continental scale. Y1 - 2018 SN - 978-1-119-21788-6 SN - 978-1-119-21786-2 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119217886.ch10 SN - 0065-8448 VL - 233 SP - 169 EP - 183 PB - American Geophysical Union CY - Washington ER -