Potential of historical meteorological and hydrological data for the reconstruction of historical flood events – the example of the 1882 flood in southwest Germany

Abstract. This paper presents a hydrometeorological reconstruction of the flood triggering meteorological situation and the simulation of discharges of the flood event of December 1882 in the Neckar catchment in Baden-Württemberg (southwest Germany). The course of the 1882 flood event in the Neckar catchment in southwest Germany and the weather conditions which led to this flood were reconstructed by evaluating the information from various historical sources. From these historical data, daily input data sets were derived for run-off modeling. For the determination of the precipitation pattern at the end of December 1882, the sparse historical data were modified by using a similar modern day precipitation pattern with a higher station density. The results of this run-off simulation are compared with contemporary historical data and also with 1-D hydraulic simulations using the HEC-RAS model.