Articles | Volume 20, issue 4
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 1187–1201, 2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1187-2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Special issue: Recent advances in drought and water scarcity monitoring,...
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 1187–1201, 2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1187-2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article 30 Apr 2020
Research article | 30 Apr 2020
Improving early warning of drought-driven food insecurity in southern Africa using operational hydrological monitoring and forecasting products
Shraddhanand Shukla et al.
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C. Funk, A. Hoell, S. Shukla, I. Bladé, B. Liebmann, J. B. Roberts, F. R. Robertson, and G. Husak
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 4965–4978, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-4965-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-4965-2014, 2014
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Western Pacific SST gradients influence eastern East African precipitation in predictable ways. At seasonal and decadal timescales, warm equatorial western Pacific SSTs and cool eastern Pacific SSTs reduce precipitation in East Africa. The gradient between these regions can be used to make reasonably accurate forecasts in one of the world's most food-insecure regions. Recent warming in the western Pacific and stationary eastern Pacific conditions have produced large precipitation declines.
S. Shukla, A. McNally, G. Husak, and C. Funk
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 3907–3921, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-3907-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-3907-2014, 2014
S. Shukla, J. Sheffield, E. F. Wood, and D. P. Lettenmaier
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 2781–2796, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-2781-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-2781-2013, 2013
Huisheng Bian, Eunjee Lee, Randal D. Koster, Donifan Barahona, Mian Chin, Peter R. Colarco, Anton Darmenov, Sarith Mahanama, Michael Manyin, Peter Norris, John Shilling, Hongbin Yu, and Fanwei Zeng
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 14177–14197, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14177-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14177-2021, 2021
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The study using the NASA Earth system model shows ~2.6 % increase in burning season gross primary production and ~1.5 % increase in annual net primary production across the Amazon Basin during 2010–2016 due to the change in surface downward direct and diffuse photosynthetically active radiation by biomass burning aerosols. Such an aerosol effect is strongly dependent on the presence of clouds. The cloud fraction at which aerosols switch from stimulating to inhibiting plant growth occurs at ~0.8.
Jawairia A. Ahmad, Barton A. Forman, and Sujay V. Kumar
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-460, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-460, 2021
Preprint under review for HESS
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Assimilation of remotely sensed data into a land surface model to improve the spatiotemporal estimation of soil moisture across South Asia exhibits potential. Satellite retrieval assimilation corrects biases that are generated due to unmodeled hydrologic phenomenon, i.e., irrigation. The improvements in fine-scale, modeled soil moisture estimates by assimilating coarse-scale retrievals indicates the utility of the described methodology for data scarce regions.
Min Huang, James H. Crawford, Joshua P. DiGangi, Gregory R. Carmichael, Kevin W. Bowman, Sujay V. Kumar, and Xiwu Zhan
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 11013–11040, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11013-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11013-2021, 2021
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This study evaluates the impact of satellite soil moisture data assimilation on modeled weather and ozone fields at various altitudes above the southeastern US during the summer. It emphasizes the importance of soil moisture in the understanding of surface ozone pollution and upper tropospheric chemistry, as well as air pollutants’ source–receptor relationships between the US and its downwind areas.
Michiel Maertens, Gabriëlle J. M. De Lannoy, Sebastian Apers, Sujay V. Kumar, and Sarith P. P. Mahanama
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 4099–4125, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-4099-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-4099-2021, 2021
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In this study, we simulated the water balance over the South American Dry Chaco and assessed the impact of land cover changes thereon using three different land surface models. Our simulations indicated that different models result in a different partitioning of the total water budget, but all showed an increase in soil moisture and percolation over the deforested areas. We also found that, relative to independent data, no specific land surface model is significantly better than another.
Wanshu Nie, Sujay V. Kumar, Kristi R. Arsenault, Christa D. Peters-Lidard, Iliana E. Mladenova, Karim Bergaoui, Abheera Hazra, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Sarith P. Mahanama, Rachael McDonnell, David M. Mocko, and Mahdi Navari
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-263, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-263, 2021
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The Middle East and North Africa region faces significant food/water insecurity and hydrological hazards. Here we investigate the value of assimilating remote sensing datasets into an earth system model to help build an effective drought monitoring system, supporting risk mitigation and management by countries in the region. We highlight incorporating satellite-informed vegetation condition into the model as one of the key processes to be captured for a successful application for the region.
Rhae Sung Kim, Sujay Kumar, Carrie Vuyovich, Paul Houser, Jessica Lundquist, Lawrence Mudryk, Michael Durand, Ana Barros, Edward J. Kim, Barton A. Forman, Ethan D. Gutmann, Melissa L. Wrzesien, Camille Garnaud, Melody Sandells, Hans-Peter Marshall, Nicoleta Cristea, Justin M. Pflug, Jeremy Johnston, Yueqian Cao, David Mocko, and Shugong Wang
The Cryosphere, 15, 771–791, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-771-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-771-2021, 2021
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High SWE uncertainty is observed in mountainous and forested regions, highlighting the need for high-resolution snow observations in these regions. Substantial uncertainty in snow water storage in Tundra regions and the dominance of water storage in these regions points to the need for high-accuracy snow estimation. Finally, snow measurements during the melt season are most needed at high latitudes, whereas observations at near peak snow accumulations are most beneficial over the midlatitudes.
Mahmoud Osman, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Hamada S. Badr, Jordan I. Christian, Tsegaye Tadesse, Jason A. Otkin, and Martha C. Anderson
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 565–581, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-565-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-565-2021, 2021
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Our study of flash droughts' definitions over the United States shows that published definitions yield markedly different inventories of flash drought geography and frequency. Results suggest there are several pathways that can lead to events that are characterized as flash droughts. Lack of consensus across definitions helps to explain apparent contradictions in the literature on trends and indicates the selection of a definition is important for accurate monitoring of different mechanisms.
Yifan Zhou, Benjamin F. Zaitchik, Sujay V. Kumar, Kristi R. Arsenault, Mir A. Matin, Faisal M. Qamer, Ryan A. Zamora, and Kiran Shakya
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 41–61, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-41-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-41-2021, 2021
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South and Southeast Asia face significant food insecurity and hydrological hazards. Here we introduce a South and Southeast Asia hydrological monitoring and sub-seasonal to seasonal forecasting system (SAHFS-S2S) to help local governments and decision-makers prepare for extreme hydroclimatic events. The monitoring system captures soil moisture variability well in most regions, and the forecasting system offers skillful prediction of soil moisture variability 2–3 months in advance, on average.
Justin Schulte, Frederick Policelli, and Benjamin Zaitchik
Nonlin. Processes Geophys. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-2020-48, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-2020-48, 2020
Revised manuscript accepted for NPG
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The skewness of a time series is commonly used to quantify the extent to which positive (negative) deviations from the mean are larger than negative (positive) ones. However, in some cases, traditional skewness may not provide reliable information about time series skewness, motivating the development of a waveform skewness index in this paper. The waveform skewness index is used to show that changes in the relationship strength between climate time series could arise from changes in skewness.
Justin Schulte, Frederick Policielli, and Benjamin Zaitchik
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 5473–5489, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5473-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5473-2020, 2020
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Wavelet coherence is now a commonly used method for detecting scale-dependent relationships between time series. In this study, the concept of wavelet coherence is generalized to higher-order wavelet coherence methods that quantify the relationship between higher-order statistical moments associated with two time series. The methods are applied to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian monsoon to show that the ENSO–Indian monsoon relationship is impacted by ENSO nonlinearity.
Xinxuan Zhang, Viviana Maggioni, Azbina Rahman, Paul Houser, Yuan Xue, Timothy Sauer, Sujay Kumar, and David Mocko
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3775–3788, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-3775-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-3775-2020, 2020
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This study assesses the extent to which a land surface model can be optimized via the assimilation of leaf area index (LAI) observations at the global scale. The model performance is evaluated by the model-estimated LAI and five water flux/storage variables. Results show the LAI assimilation reduces errors in the model-estimated LAI. The LAI assimilation also improves the five water variables under wet conditions, but some of the model-estimated variables tend to be worse under dry conditions.
Sujay V. Kumar, Thomas R. Holmes, Rajat Bindlish, Richard de Jeu, and Christa Peters-Lidard
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3431–3450, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-3431-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-3431-2020, 2020
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Vegetation optical depth (VOD) is a byproduct of the soil moisture retrieval from passive microwave instruments. This study demonstrates that VOD information can be utilized for improving land surface water budget and carbon conditions through data assimilation.
Jing Tao, Randal D. Koster, Rolf H. Reichle, Barton A. Forman, Yuan Xue, Richard H. Chen, and Mahta Moghaddam
The Cryosphere, 13, 2087–2110, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2087-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-2087-2019, 2019
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The active layer thickness (ALT) in middle-to-high northern latitudes from 1980 to 2017 was produced at 81 km2 resolution by a global land surface model (NASA's CLSM) with forcing fields from a reanalysis data set, MERRA-2. The simulated permafrost distribution and ALTs agree reasonably well with an observation-based map and in situ measurements, respectively. The accumulated above-freezing air temperature and maximum snow water equivalent explain most of the year-to-year variability of ALT.
Nevil Quinn, Günter Blöschl, András Bárdossy, Attilio Castellarin, Martyn Clark, Christophe Cudennec, Demetris Koutsoyiannis, Upmanu Lall, Lubomir Lichner, Juraj Parajka, Christa D. Peters-Lidard, Graham Sander, Hubert Savenije, Keith Smettem, Harry Vereecken, Alberto Viglione, Patrick Willems, Andy Wood, Ross Woods, Chong-Yu Xu, and Erwin Zehe
Proc. IAHS, 380, 3–8, https://doi.org/10.5194/piahs-380-3-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/piahs-380-3-2018, 2018
Nevil Quinn, Günter Blöschl, András Bárdossy, Attilio Castellarin, Martyn Clark, Christophe Cudennec, Demetris Koutsoyiannis, Upmanu Lall, Lubomir Lichner, Juraj Parajka, Christa D. Peters-Lidard, Graham Sander, Hubert Savenije, Keith Smettem, Harry Vereecken, Alberto Viglione, Patrick Willems, Andy Wood, Ross Woods, Chong-Yu Xu, and Erwin Zehe
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 5735–5739, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-5735-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-5735-2018, 2018
Eunjee Lee, Fan-Wei Zeng, Randal D. Koster, Brad Weir, Lesley E. Ott, and Benjamin Poulter
Biogeosciences, 15, 5635–5652, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5635-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5635-2018, 2018
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Land carbon fluxes are controlled in part by the responses of terrestrial ecosystems to atmospheric conditions near the Earth's surface. This study offers a comprehensive evaluation of the consequences of multiple facets of spatiotemporal variability in atmospheric CO2 for carbon cycle dynamics. Globally, consideration of the diurnal CO2 variability reduces the gross primary production and net land carbon uptake. The relative contributions of other variability vary regionally and seasonally.
Kristi R. Arsenault, Sujay V. Kumar, James V. Geiger, Shugong Wang, Eric Kemp, David M. Mocko, Hiroko Kato Beaudoing, Augusto Getirana, Mahdi Navari, Bailing Li, Jossy Jacob, Jerry Wegiel, and Christa D. Peters-Lidard
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The Earth’s land surface hydrology and physics can be represented in highly sophisticated models known as land surface models. The Land surface Data Toolkit (LDT) software was developed to meet these models’ input processing needs. LDT supports a variety of land surface and hydrology models and prepares the inputs (e.g., meteorological data, satellite observations to be assimilated into a model), which can be used for inter-model studies and to initialize weather and climate forecasts.
Randal D. Koster, Alan K. Betts, Paul A. Dirmeyer, Marc Bierkens, Katrina E. Bennett, Stephen J. Déry, Jason P. Evans, Rong Fu, Felipe Hernandez, L. Ruby Leung, Xu Liang, Muhammad Masood, Hubert Savenije, Guiling Wang, and Xing Yuan
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 3777–3798, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3777-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3777-2017, 2017
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Large-scale hydrological variability can affect society in profound ways; floods and droughts, for example, often cause major damage and hardship. A recent gathering of hydrologists at a symposium to honor the career of Professor Eric Wood motivates the present survey of recent research on this variability. The surveyed literature and the illustrative examples provided in the paper show that research into hydrological variability continues to be strong, vibrant, and multifaceted.
Christa D. Peters-Lidard, Martyn Clark, Luis Samaniego, Niko E. C. Verhoest, Tim van Emmerik, Remko Uijlenhoet, Kevin Achieng, Trenton E. Franz, and Ross Woods
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 3701–3713, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3701-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3701-2017, 2017
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In this synthesis of hydrologic scaling and similarity, we assert that it is time for hydrology to embrace a fourth paradigm of data-intensive science. Advances in information-based hydrologic science, coupled with an explosion of hydrologic data and advances in parameter estimation and modeling, have laid the foundation for a data-driven framework for scrutinizing hydrological hypotheses. We call upon the community to develop a focused effort towards a fourth paradigm for hydrology.
Ricardo Zubieta, Augusto Getirana, Jhan Carlo Espinoza, Waldo Lavado-Casimiro, and Luis Aragon
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 3543–3555, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3543-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3543-2017, 2017
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This paper indicates that precipitation data derived from GPM-IMERG correspond more closely to TMPA V7 than TMPA RT datasets, but both GPM-IMERG and TMPA V7 precipitation data tend to overestimate, in comparison to observed rainfall (by 11.1 % and 15.7 %, respectively). Statistical analysis indicates that GPM-IMERG is as useful as TMPA V7 or TMPA RT datasets for estimating observed streamflows in Andean–Amazonian regions (Ucayali Basin, southern regions of the Amazon Basin of Peru and Ecuador).
Martyn P. Clark, Marc F. P. Bierkens, Luis Samaniego, Ross A. Woods, Remko Uijlenhoet, Katrina E. Bennett, Valentijn R. N. Pauwels, Xitian Cai, Andrew W. Wood, and Christa D. Peters-Lidard
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 3427–3440, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3427-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3427-2017, 2017
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The diversity in hydrologic models has led to controversy surrounding the “correct” approach to hydrologic modeling. In this paper we revisit key modeling challenges on requirements to (1) define suitable model equations, (2) define adequate model parameters, and (3) cope with limitations in computing power. We outline the historical modeling challenges, summarize modeling advances that address these challenges, and define outstanding research needs.
Sujay V. Kumar, Jiarui Dong, Christa D. Peters-Lidard, David Mocko, and Breogán Gómez
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 2637–2647, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-2637-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-2637-2017, 2017
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Data assimilation deals with the blending of model forecasts and observations based on their relative errors. This paper addresses the importance of accurately representing the errors in the model forecasts for skillful data assimilation performance.
Xiangyu Luo, Hong-Yi Li, L. Ruby Leung, Teklu K. Tesfa, Augusto Getirana, Fabrice Papa, and Laura L. Hess
Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 1233–1259, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1233-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1233-2017, 2017
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This study shows that alleviating vegetation-caused biases in DEM data, refining channel cross-sectional geometry and Manning roughness coefficients, as well as accounting for backwater effects can effectively improve the modeling of streamflow, river stages and flood extent in the Amazon Basin. The obtained understanding could be helpful to hydrological modeling in basins with evident inundation, which has important implications for improving land–atmosphere interactions in Earth system models.
Julie E. Shortridge, Seth D. Guikema, and Benjamin F. Zaitchik
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2611–2628, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-2611-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-2611-2016, 2016
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This paper compares six methods for data-driven rainfall–runoff simulation in terms of predictive accuracy, error structure, interpretability, and uncertainty. We demonstrate that autocorrelation in model errors can result in biased estimates of important values and show how certain model structures can be more easily interpreted to yield insights on physical watershed function. Finally, we explore how model structure can impact uncertainty in climate change sensitivity estimates.
S. V. Kumar, C. D. Peters-Lidard, J. A. Santanello, R. H. Reichle, C. S. Draper, R. D. Koster, G. Nearing, and M. F. Jasinski
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 4463–4478, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-4463-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-4463-2015, 2015
C. Funk, A. Verdin, J. Michaelsen, P. Peterson, D. Pedreros, and G. Husak
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 7, 275–287, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-7-275-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-7-275-2015, 2015
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We derive a new global 0.05 degree precipitation climatology using satellite data, topography and climate normals via moving window regression. The resulting global 0.05° monthly precipitation climatology, the Climate Hazards Group’s Precipitation Climatology version 1 (CHPclim v.1.0, http://dx.doi.org/10.15780/G2159X), is shown to compare favorably with similar global climatology products, especially in areas with complex terrain and low station densities.
S. Satti, B. Zaitchik, and S. Siddiqui
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 2275–2293, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-2275-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-2275-2015, 2015
C. Funk, A. Hoell, S. Shukla, I. Bladé, B. Liebmann, J. B. Roberts, F. R. Robertson, and G. Husak
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 4965–4978, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-4965-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-4965-2014, 2014
Short summary
Short summary
Western Pacific SST gradients influence eastern East African precipitation in predictable ways. At seasonal and decadal timescales, warm equatorial western Pacific SSTs and cool eastern Pacific SSTs reduce precipitation in East Africa. The gradient between these regions can be used to make reasonably accurate forecasts in one of the world's most food-insecure regions. Recent warming in the western Pacific and stationary eastern Pacific conditions have produced large precipitation declines.
S. Shukla, A. McNally, G. Husak, and C. Funk
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 3907–3921, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-3907-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-3907-2014, 2014
S. Shukla, J. Sheffield, E. F. Wood, and D. P. Lettenmaier
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 2781–2796, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-2781-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-2781-2013, 2013
Z. Tao, J. A. Santanello, M. Chin, S. Zhou, Q. Tan, E. M. Kemp, and C. D. Peters-Lidard
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 6207–6226, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-6207-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-6207-2013, 2013
A. C. V. Getirana and C. Peters-Lidard
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 923–933, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-923-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-923-2013, 2013
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Haixia Zhang, Weihua Fang, Hua Zhang, and Lu Yu
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 3161–3174, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-3161-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-3161-2021, 2021
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Taking a single flood disaster in Lishui city as an example, a rapid and refined assessment of economic loss is studied and verified, which can effectively simulate the distribution of loss ratio and loss value. It includes the construction of land use type and value based on data fusion and an expert questionnaire survey, the fitting and calibration of vulnerability curves based on an existing database and disaster loss reporting, and estimation of loss ratio and loss value by spatial analysis.
Doris E. Wendt, John P. Bloomfield, Anne F. Van Loon, Margaret Garcia, Benedikt Heudorfer, Joshua Larsen, and David M. Hannah
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 3113–3139, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-3113-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-3113-2021, 2021
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Managing water demand and supply during droughts is complex, as highly pressured human–water systems can overuse water sources to maintain water supply. We evaluated the impact of drought policies on water resources using a socio-hydrological model. For a range of hydrogeological conditions, we found that integrated drought policies reduce baseflow and groundwater droughts most if extra surface water is imported, reducing the pressure on water resources during droughts.
Sara Lindersson, Luigia Brandimarte, Johanna Mård, and Giuliano Di Baldassarre
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 2921–2948, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2921-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2921-2021, 2021
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Riverine flood risk assessments require the identification of areas prone to potential flooding. We find that (topography-based) hydrogeomorphic floodplain maps can in many cases be useful for riverine flood risk assessments, particularly where hydrologic data are scarce. For 26 countries across the global south, we also demonstrate how dataset choice influences the estimated number of people living within flood-prone zones.
Mark V. Bernhofen, Mark A. Trigg, P. Andrew Sleigh, Christopher C. Sampson, and Andrew M. Smith
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 2829–2847, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2829-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2829-2021, 2021
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The use of different global datasets to calculate flood exposure can lead to differences in global flood exposure estimates. In this study, we use three global population datasets and a simple measure of a river’s flood susceptibility (based on the terrain alone) to explore how the choice of population data and the size of river represented in global flood models affect global and national flood exposure estimates.
Antonio Francipane, Dario Pumo, Marco Sinagra, Goffredo La Loggia, and Leonardo Valerio Noto
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 2563–2580, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2563-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2563-2021, 2021
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In the last few years, some cities in the Mediterranean area have witnessed an increase in extreme rainfall events such as urban floods. The study focuses on a particularly intense urban flood that occurred in Palermo on 15 July 2020, which highlighted the need for a shift in the way stormwater in urban settlements is managed. We think that the framework used to study the impacts of the event and some conclusive remarks could be easily transferred to other urban contexts.
Luc Bonnafous and Upmanu Lall
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 2277–2284, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2277-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2277-2021, 2021
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Extreme climate events can cause human and economic catastrophe at the global scale. For specific sectors, such as humanitarian aid or insurance, being able to understand how (i.e., with which frequency and intensity) these events can occur simultaneously at different locations or several times in a given amount of time and hit critical assets is all-important to design contingency plans. Here we develop an indicator to study co-occurence in space and time of wet and dry extremes.
Colin Keating, Donghoon Lee, Juan Bazo, and Paul Block
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 2215–2231, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2215-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2215-2021, 2021
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Disaster planning has historically underallocated resources for flood preparedness, but evidence supports reduced vulnerability via early actions. We evaluate the ability of multiple season-ahead streamflow prediction models to appropriately trigger early actions for the flood-prone Marañón River and Piura River in Peru. Our findings suggest that locally tailored statistical models may offer improved performance compared to operational physically based global models in low-data environments.
Antonia Longobardi, Ouafik Boulariah, and Paolo Villani
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 2181–2196, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2181-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2181-2021, 2021
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The current research was aimed at the description of historical drought periods that have characterized a broad area of the Mediterranean Basin and the Campania region, located in southern Italy. Knowledge of the past conditions would increase the awareness of the communities with respect to the frequency and severity of critical conditions which have affected and might further affect the environment in which they live.
Henk-Jan van Alphen, Clemens Strehl, Fabian Vollmer, Eduard Interwies, Anasha Petersen, Stefan Görlitz, Luca Locatelli, Montse Martinez Puentes, Maria Guerrero Hidalga, Elias Giannakis, Teun Spek, Marc Scheibel, Erle Kristvik, Fernanda Rocha, and Emmy Bergsma
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 2145–2161, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2145-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2145-2021, 2021
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This paper presents an approach to selecting and analysing climate change adaptation measures, using a combination of scientific analysis and stakeholder interaction. This approach was applied in six cases across Europe, concerning drought and extreme precipitation. Although the cases vary widely, the approach yielded decision-relevant outcomes for the development of adaptation strategies, regarding socio-economic impacts of measures and potential barriers to implementation.
Robert P. Dziak, Bryan A. Black, Yong Wei, and Susan G. Merle
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 1971–1982, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1971-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1971-2021, 2021
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On 26 January 1700 CE, a massive earthquake and tsunami struck the US Pacific Northwest west coast. The tsunami caused severe damage to coastal forests in Washington State. However, evidence of the impact on coastal Oregon trees has been difficult to find. We present some of the first evidence of tree-ring growth changes caused by the 1700 tsunami from an old-growth Douglas-fir stand located in South Beach, Oregon. We also present a tsunami inundation model of the 1700 earthquake.
Tao Liu, Luke A. McGuire, Nina Oakley, and Forest Cannon
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2021-157, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2021-157, 2021
Revised manuscript under review for NHESS
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A well-constrained rainfall-runoff model forced by radar-derived precipitation is used to define rainfall intensity-duration (ID) thresholds for flash flood. The rainfall ID doubles in five years after a severe wildfire in a watershed in southern California, USA. Rainfall ID perform stably well when the intense pulses of rainfall over durations of 30–60 minutes that cover at least 15 %–25 % of the watershed. This finding could help issuing flash flood warnings based on radar-derived precipitation.
Tigstu T. Dullo, George K. Darkwah, Sudershan Gangrade, Mario Morales-Hernández, M. Bulbul Sharif, Alfred J. Kalyanapu, Shih-Chieh Kao, Sheikh Ghafoor, and Moetasim Ashfaq
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 1739–1757, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1739-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1739-2021, 2021
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We studied the effect of potential future climate change on floods, flood protection, and electricity infrastructure in the Conasauga River watershed in the US using ensemble hydrodynamic modeling. We used a GPU-accelerated Two-dimensional Runoff Inundation Toolkit for Operational Needs (TRITON) hydrodynamic model to simulate floods. Overall, this study demonstrates how a fast hydrodynamic model can enhance flood frequency maps and vulnerability assessment under changing climatic conditions.
Sengphrachanh Phakonkham, So Kazama, and Daisuke Komori
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 1551–1567, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1551-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1551-2021, 2021
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The main objective of this study was to propose a new approach to integrating hazard maps to detect hazardous areas on a national scale, for which area-limited data are available. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was used as a tool to combine the different hazard maps into an integrated hazard map. The results from integrated hazard maps can identify dangerous areas from both individual and integrated hazards.
Yuhan Yang, Jie Yin, Weiguo Zhang, Yan Zhang, Yi Lu, Aoyue Xiao, Yunxiao Wang, and Wenming Song
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2021-141, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2021-141, 2021
Revised manuscript accepted for NHESS
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It's the first time to investigate the compound flooding process of heavy rain and levee breach-induced flooding. Real-life cases of historical flooding events have been adequately investigated. Our results provide a comprehensive view of the spatial patterns of the flood evolution, the dynamic process and mechanism of these cases which can help decision-makers to develop effective emergency response plans and flood adaptation strategies.
Eklavyya Popat and Petra Döll
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 1337–1354, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1337-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1337-2021, 2021
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Two drought hazard indices are presented that combine drought deficit and anomaly aspects: one for soil moisture drought (SMDAI) where we simplified the DSI and the other for streamflow drought (QDAI), which is to our knowledge the first ever deficit anomaly drought index including surface water demand. Both indices are tested at the global scale with WaterGAP 2.2d outputs, providing more differentiated spatial and temporal patterns distinguishing the actual degree of respective drought hazard.
Antonio-Juan Collados-Lara, David Pulido-Velazquez, Juan-de-Dios Gómez-Gómez, and Eulogio Pardo-Igúzquiza
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2021-121, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2021-121, 2021
Revised manuscript under review for NHESS
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This work studies the benefit of using more reliable local climate scenarios to analyse hydrological impacts. It has been applied in the Cenajo Basin (southeast Spain), where we demonstrate that the best approximations of the historical meteorological statistics provide also the best approximations of the hydrology ones. The two selected climate models predict higher frequency, length, magnitude and intensity of extreme meteorological droughts.
Xudong Zhou, Wenchao Ma, Wataru Echizenya, and Dai Yamazaki
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 1071–1085, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1071-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1071-2021, 2021
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This article assesses different uncertainties in the analysis of flood risk and found the runoff generated before the river routing is the primary uncertainty source. This calls for attention to be focused on selecting an appropriate runoff for the flood analysis. The uncertainties are reflected in the flood water depth, inundation area and the exposure of the population and economy to the floods.
Kees C. H. van Ginkel, Francesco Dottori, Lorenzo Alfieri, Luc Feyen, and Elco E. Koks
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 1011–1027, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1011-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1011-2021, 2021
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This study presents a state-of-the-art approach to assess flood damage for each unique road segment in Europe. We find a mean total flood risk of EUR 230 million per year for all individual road segments combined. We identify flood hotspots in the Alps, along the Sava River, and on the Scandinavian Peninsula. To achieve this, we propose a new set of damage curves for roads and challenge the community to validate and improve these. Analysis of network effects can be easily added to our analysis.
Gijs van Kempen, Karin van der Wiel, and Lieke Anna Melsen
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 961–976, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-961-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-961-2021, 2021
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In this study, we combine climate model results with a hydrological model to investigate uncertainties in flood and drought risk. With the climate model, 2000 years of
current climatewas created. The hydrological model consisted of several building blocks that we could adapt. In this way, we could investigate the effect of these hydrological building blocks on high- and low-flow risk in four different climate zones with return periods of up to 500 years.
Yair Rinat, Francesco Marra, Moshe Armon, Asher Metzger, Yoav Levi, Pavel Khain, Elyakom Vadislavsky, Marcelo Rosensaft, and Efrat Morin
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 917–939, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-917-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-917-2021, 2021
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Flash floods are among the most devastating and lethal natural hazards worldwide. The study of such events is important as flash floods are poorly understood and documented processes, especially in deserts. A small portion of the studied basin (1 %–20 %) experienced extreme rainfall intensities resulting in local flash floods of high magnitudes. Flash floods started and reached their peak within tens of minutes. Forecasts poorly predicted the flash floods mostly due to location inaccuracy.
Huijun Li, Lin Zhu, Gaoxuan Guo, Yan Zhang, Zhenxue Dai, Xiaojuan Li, Linzhen Chang, and Pietro Teatini
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 823–835, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-823-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-823-2021, 2021
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We propose a method that integrates fuzzy set theory and a weighted Bayesian model to evaluate the hazard probability of land subsidence based on Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar technology. The proposed model can represent the uncertainty and ambiguity in the evaluation process, and results can be compared to traditional qualitative methods.
William Mobley, Antonia Sebastian, Russell Blessing, Wesley E. Highfield, Laura Stearns, and Samuel D. Brody
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 807–822, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-807-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-807-2021, 2021
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In southeast Texas, flood impacts are exacerbated by increases in impervious surfaces, human inaction, outdated FEMA-defined floodplains and modeling assumptions, and changing environmental conditions. The current flood maps are inadequate indicators of flood risk, especially in urban areas. This study proposes a novel method to model flood hazard and impact in urban areas. Specifically, we used novel flood risk modeling techniques to produce annualized flood hazard maps.
Dan Wang, Paolo Scussolini, and Shiqiang Du
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 743–755, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-743-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-743-2021, 2021
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Flood protection level (FPL) is vital for risk analysis and management but scarce in realty particularly for developing countries. This paper develops a policy-based FPL dataset for China and validates it using local FPL designs. The FPLs are much higher than that in a global database, suggesting Chinese flood risk could be lower with the policy-required FPLs. Moreover, the FPLs are lower for western China and vulnerable people, implying a spatial and social divergence of the FPLs.
Jiyang Tian, Ronghua Liu, Liuqian Ding, Liang Guo, and Bingyu Zhang
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 723–742, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-723-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-723-2021, 2021
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A typhoon always comes with heavy rainfall which leads to great loss. The aim of this study is to explore the reasonable use of Doppler radar data assimilation to correct the initial and lateral boundary conditions of the numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems for typhoon rainstorm forecasts at catchment scale. The results show that assimilating radial velocity at a time interval of 1 h can significantly improve the rainfall simulations and outperform the other assimilation modes.
Oliver E. J. Wing, Andrew M. Smith, Michael L. Marston, Jeremy R. Porter, Mike F. Amodeo, Christopher C. Sampson, and Paul D. Bates
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 559–575, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-559-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-559-2021, 2021
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Global flood models are difficult to validate. They generally output theoretical flood events of a given probability rather than an observed event that they can be tested against. Here, we adapt a US-wide flood model to enable the rapid simulation of historical flood events in order to more robustly understand model biases. For 35 flood events, we highlight the challenges of model validation amidst observational data errors yet evidence the increasing skill of large-scale models.
Chunbo Jiang, Qi Zhou, Wangyang Yu, Chen Yang, and Binliang Lin
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 497–515, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-497-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-497-2021, 2021
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We proposed a new dynamic coupling model for flood simulation and prediction. The model can dynamically alter the coupling boundary position based on the characteristic theory to determine the non-inundation and inundation regions, taking into account both mass and momentum exchange. Then the model was validated by several classic numerical test cases as well as experiment data and implemented in a real study case. Results show its capability for flood simulation and risk assessments.
Carmelo Cammalleri, Carolina Arias-Muñoz, Paulo Barbosa, Alfred de Jager, Diego Magni, Dario Masante, Marco Mazzeschi, Niall McCormick, Gustavo Naumann, Jonathan Spinoni, and Jürgen Vogt
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 481–495, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-481-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-481-2021, 2021
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Building on almost ten years of expertise and operational application of the Combined Drought Indicator (CDI) for the monitoring of agricultural droughts in Europe within the European Commission's European Drought Observatory (EDO), this paper proposes a revised version of the index. This paper shows that the proposed revised CDI reliably reproduces the evolution of major droughts, outperforming the current version of the indicator, especially for long-lasting events.
Buruk Kitachew Wossenyeleh, Kaleb Asnake Worku, Boud Verbeiren, and Marijke Huysmans
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 39–51, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-39-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-39-2021, 2021
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Droughts are mainly caused by a reduction of precipitation, and they affect both surface and groundwater resources. Drought propagates through the hydrological cycle and may impact vulnerable ecosystems. We investigated drought propagation in the hydrological cycle, focusing on assessing its impact on a groundwater-fed wetland ecosystem in the Doode Bemde wetland in central Belgium. We used a method combining meteorological drought indices, water balance models and groundwater models.
Darren Lumbroso, Mark Davison, Richard Body, and Gregor Petkovšek
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 21–37, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-21-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-21-2021, 2021
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A tailings dam is an earth embankment used to store the waste from mines, known as tailings. In 2019, the Brumadinho tailings dam in Brazil failed, releasing a mudflow which killed ~ 300 people. This paper details the use of an agent-based model to estimate the risk to people downstream of this dam. The agent-based model represents each individual person. The modelling indicated that if a warning had been issued as the dam failed, the number of fatalities could have been reduced.
Hasrul Hazman Hasan, Siti Fatin Mohd Razali, Nur Shazwani Muhammad, and Firdaus Mohamad Hamzah
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 1–19, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1-2021, 2021
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This study aims to understand the concept of low-flow drought characteristics and the predictive significance of river storage draft rates in managing sustainable water catchment. This study consists of four types of analyses: streamflow trend analysis, low-flow frequency analysis, determination of the minimum storage draft rates and hydrological-drought characteristics. The results are useful for developing measures to maintain flow variability and can be used to develop water policies.
Anna E. Sikorska-Senoner, Bettina Schaefli, and Jan Seibert
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 3521–3549, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3521-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3521-2020, 2020
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This work proposes methods for reducing the computational requirements of hydrological simulations for the estimation of very rare floods that occur on average less than once in 1000 years. These methods enable the analysis of long streamflow time series (here for example 10 000 years) at low computational costs and with modelling uncertainty. They are to be used within continuous simulation frameworks with long input time series and are readily transferable to similar simulation tasks.
Matteo Balistrocchi, Rodolfo Metulini, Maurizio Carpita, and Roberto Ranzi
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 3485–3500, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3485-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3485-2020, 2020
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Flood risk is an increasing threat to urban communities and their strategical assets worldwide. Non-structural practices, such as emergency management plans, can be effective in order to decrease the flood risk in strongly urbanized areas. Mobile phone data provide reliable estimates of the spatiotemporal variability in people exposed to flooding, thus enhancing the preparedness of stakeholders involved in flood risk management. Further, practical advantages emerge with respect to crowdsourcing.
Juan P. Martín-Vide, Arnau Prats-Puntí, and Carles Ferrer-Boix
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 3315–3331, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3315-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3315-2020, 2020
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An alluvial Mediterranean river changed its riverine and deltaic landscape. The delta has been heavily retreating (up to 800 m) for more than a century. We focus on the river, channelized in the last 50 years, trying to link its sandy sediment yield to the delta evolution. Sediment availability in the last 30 km of the river channel is deemed responsible for the decrease in the sediment yield to the delta. Sediment supply reduction to the coast jeopardizes the future of the delta and beaches.
Guillaume Piton, Toshiyuki Horiguchi, Lise Marchal, and Stéphane Lambert
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 3293–3314, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3293-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3293-2020, 2020
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Open check dams are flood protection structures trapping sediment and large wood. Large wood obstructs openings of dams, thus increasing flow levels. If flow levels become higher than the dam crest, the trapped large wood may overtop the structure and be suddenly released downstream, which may also eventually obstruct downstream bridges. This paper is based on experiments on small-scale models. It shows how to compute the increase in flow level and conditions leading to sudden overtopping.
María Teresa Contreras, Jorge Gironás, and Cristián Escauriaza
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 3261–3277, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3261-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3261-2020, 2020
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The prediction of multiple scenarios of flood hazard in mountain regions is typically based on expensive high-resolution models that simulate the flood propagation using significant computational resources. In this investigation we develop a surrogate model that provides a rapid evaluation of the flood hazard using a statistical approach and precomputed scenarios. This surrogate model is an advanced tool that can be used for early warning systems and to help decision makers and city planners.
Jerom P. M. Aerts, Steffi Uhlemann-Elmer, Dirk Eilander, and Philip J. Ward
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 3245–3260, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3245-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3245-2020, 2020
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We compare and analyse flood hazard maps from eight global flood models that represent the current state of the global flood modelling community. We apply our comparison to China as a case study, and for the first time, we include industry models, pluvial flooding, and flood protection standards. We find substantial variability between the flood hazard maps in the modelled inundated area and exposed gross domestic product (GDP) across multiple return periods and in expected annual exposed GDP.
David J. Peres, Alfonso Senatore, Paola Nanni, Antonino Cancelliere, Giuseppe Mendicino, and Brunella Bonaccorso
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 3057–3082, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3057-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-3057-2020, 2020
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Regional climate models (RCMs) are commonly used for high-resolution assessment of climate change impacts. This research assesses the reliability of several RCMs in a Mediterranean area (southern Italy), comparing historic climate and drought characteristics with
high-density and high-quality ground-based observational datasets. We propose a general methodology and identify the more skilful models able to reproduce precipitation and temperature variability as well as drought characteristics.
Mathilde Erfurt, Georgios Skiadaresis, Erik Tijdeman, Veit Blauhut, Jürgen Bauhus, Rüdiger Glaser, Julia Schwarz, Willy Tegel, and Kerstin Stahl
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2979–2995, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2979-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2979-2020, 2020
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Droughts are multifaceted hazards with widespread negative consequences for the environment and society. This study explores different perspectives on drought and determines the added value of multidisciplinary datasets for a comprehensive understanding of past drought events in southwestern Germany. A long-term evaluation of drought frequency since 1801 revealed that events occurred in all decades, but a particular clustering was found in the mid-19th century and the most recent decade.
Corrado Camera, Adriana Bruggeman, George Zittis, Ioannis Sofokleous, and Joël Arnault
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2791–2810, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2791-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2791-2020, 2020
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Can numerical models simulate intense rainfall events and consequent streamflow in a mountainous area with small watersheds well? We applied state-of-the-art one-way-coupled atmospheric–hydrologic models and we found that, despite rainfall events simulated with low errors, large discrepancies between the observed and simulated streamflow were observed. Shifts in time and space of the modelled rainfall peak are the main reason. Still, the models can be applied for climate change impact studies.
Farhad Hooshyaripor, Sanaz Faraji-Ashkavar, Farshad Koohyian, Qiuhong Tang, and Roohollah Noori
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2739–2751, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2739-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2739-2020, 2020
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The effect of El Niño on flood damage was investigated. The methodology was based on the calculation of increasing rainfall amount during El Niño events compared to normal conditions. With the southern oscillation index equal to −1.0 as the threshold of El Niño, the annual percentage of increased rainfall is 12.2 %. The annual change factor may not necessarily be transferred to extreme values. Nonetheless, the change factor was applied for generating simulated storms of different return periods.
Robert Jane, Luis Cadavid, Jayantha Obeysekera, and Thomas Wahl
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2681–2699, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2681-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2681-2020, 2020
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Full dependence is assumed between drivers in flood protection assessments of coastal water control structures in south Florida. A 2-D analysis of rainfall and coastal water level showed that the magnitude of the conservative assumption in the original design is highly sensitive to the regional sea level rise projection considered. The vine copula and HT04 model outperformed five higher-dimensional copulas in capturing the dependence between rainfall, coastal water level, and groundwater level.
Punit K. Bhola, Jorge Leandro, and Markus Disse
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2647–2663, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2647-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2647-2020, 2020
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In operational flood risk management, a single best model is used to assess the impact of flooding, which might misrepresent uncertainties in the modelling process. We have used quantified uncertainties in flood forecasting to generate flood hazard maps that were combined based on different exceedance probability scenarios with the purpose to differentiate impacts of flooding and to account for uncertainties in flood hazard maps that can be used by decision makers.
El Mahdi El Khalki, Yves Tramblay, Christian Massari, Luca Brocca, Vincent Simonneaux, Simon Gascoin, and Mohamed El Mehdi Saidi
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2591–2607, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2591-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2591-2020, 2020
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In North Africa, the vulnerability to floods is high, and there is a need to improve the flood-forecasting systems. Remote-sensing and reanalysis data can palliate the lack of in situ measurements, in particular for soil moisture, which is a crucial parameter to consider when modeling floods. In this study we provide an evaluation of recent globally available soil moisture products for flood modeling in Morocco.
Barry Hankin, Ian Hewitt, Graham Sander, Federico Danieli, Giuseppe Formetta, Alissa Kamilova, Ann Kretzschmar, Kris Kiradjiev, Clint Wong, Sam Pegler, and Rob Lamb
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2567–2584, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2567-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2567-2020, 2020
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With growing support for nature-based solutions to reduce flooding by local communities, government authorities and international organisations, it is still important to improve how we assess risk reduction. We demonstrate an efficient, simplified 1D network model that allows us to explore the
whole-systemresponse of numerous leaky barriers placed in different stream networks, whilst considering utilisation, synchronisation effects and cascade failure, and we provide advice on their siting.
Thomas O'Shea, Paul Bates, and Jeffrey Neal
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2281–2305, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2281-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2281-2020, 2020
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Outlined here is a multi-disciplinary framework for analysing and evaluating the nature of vulnerability to, and capacity for, flood hazard within a complex urban society. It provides scope beyond the current, reified, descriptors of
flood riskand models the role of affected individuals within flooded areas. Using agent-based modelling coupled with the LISFLOOD-FP hydrodynamic model, potentially influential behaviours that give rise to the flood hazard system are identified and discussed.
Joan Estrany, Maurici Ruiz-Pérez, Raphael Mutzner, Josep Fortesa, Beatriz Nácher-Rodríguez, Miquel Tomàs-Burguera, Julián García-Comendador, Xavier Peña, Adolfo Calvo-Cases, and Francisco J. Vallés-Morán
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2195–2220, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2195-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2195-2020, 2020
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A catastrophic flash-flood event hit the northeastern part of Mallorca in 2018, causing 13 casualties and impacting on the international opinion in one of the most important tourist resorts. The analysis of the rainfall–runoff processes illustrated an unprecedented flashy behaviour in Europe triggering the natural disaster. UAVs and hydrogeomorphological precision techniques were used as a rapid post-catastrophe decision-making tool, playing a key role during the rescue searching tasks.
Aynalem T. Tsegaw, Marie Pontoppidan, Erle Kristvik, Knut Alfredsen, and Tone M. Muthanna
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2133–2155, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2133-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2133-2020, 2020
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Hydrological impacts of climate change are generally performed by following steps from global to regional climate modeling through data tailoring and hydrological modeling. Usually, the climate–hydrology chain primary focuses on medium to large catchments. To study impacts of climate change on small catchments, a high-resolution regional climate model and hydrological model are required. The results from high-resolution models help in proposing specific adaptation strategies for impacts.
Aloïs Tilloy, Bruce D. Malamud, Hugo Winter, and Amélie Joly-Laugel
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2091–2117, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2091-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2091-2020, 2020
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Estimating risks induced by interacting natural hazards remains a challenge for practitioners. An approach to tackle this challenge is to use multivariate statistical models. Here we evaluate the efficacy of six models. The models are compared against synthetic data which are comparable to time series of environmental variables. We find which models are more appropriate to estimate relations between hazards in a range of cases. We highlight the benefits of this approach with two examples.
Benjamin Winter, Klaus Schneeberger, Kristian Förster, and Sergiy Vorogushyn
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 1689–1703, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1689-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1689-2020, 2020
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In this paper two different methods to generate spatially coherent flood events for probabilistic flood risk modelling are compared: on the one hand, a semi-conditional multi-variate dependence model applied to discharge observations and, on the other hand, a continuous hydrological modelling of synthetic meteorological fields generated by a multi-site weather generator. The results of the two approaches are compared in terms of simulated spatial patterns and overall flood risk estimates.
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Short summary
The region of southern Africa is prone to climate-driven food insecurity events, as demonstrated by the major drought event in 2015–2016. This study demonstrates that recently developed NASA Hydrological Forecasting and Analysis System-based root-zone soil moisture monitoring and forecasting products are well correlated with interannual regional crop yield, can identify below-normal crop yield events and provide skillful crop yield forecasts, and hence support early warning of food insecurity.
The region of southern Africa is prone to climate-driven food insecurity events, as demonstrated...
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