Brief communication: Stay local or go global? On the construction of plausible counterfactual scenarios to assess flash flood hazards

Voit, Paul; Heistermann, Maik

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4609-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4609-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4609-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 12

Brief communication

|

16 Dec 2024

Brief communication |

| 16 Dec 2024

Brief communication: Stay local or go global? On the construction of plausible counterfactual scenarios to assess flash flood hazards

Paul Voit and Maik Heistermann

Data sets

Gauge-adjusted one-hour precipitation sum (RW): RADKLIM Version 2017.002: Reprocessed gauge-adjusted radar data, one-hour precipitation sums (RW) T. Winterrath et al. https://doi.org/10.5676/DWD/RADKLIM_RW_V2017.002

CORINE CLC5-2018 BKG https://gdz.bkg.bund.de/index.php/default/open-data/corine-land-cover-5-ha-stand-2018-clc5-2018.html

BÜK200 V5.5 BGR https://www.bgr.bund.de/DE/Themen/Boden/Informationsgrundlagen/Bodenkundliche_Karten_Datenbanken/BUEK200/buek200_node.html

Digital Elevation Model over Europe (EU-DEM) European Commission https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/digital-elevation-model/eu-dem#DD

Model code and software

A downward counterfactual analysis of flash floods in Germany - Code repository (v0.1) Paul Voit https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10473424

Short summary

Floods have caused significant damage in the past. To prepare for such events, we rely on historical data but face issues due to rare rainfall events, lack of data and climate change. Counterfactuals, or what if scenarios, simulate historical rainfall in different locations to estimate flood levels. Our new study refines this by deriving more-plausible local scenarios, using the June 2024 Bavaria flood as a case study. This method could improve preparedness for future floods.