Abstract
Whether the high number of river flood disasters in recent years in different European countries and many other areas of the globe are triggered or worsened by human activities has been the subject of a great deal of debate. Possible anthropogenic activities leading to increased flood risk include river regulation measures, intensified land use and forestry, and emissions of greenhouse gases causing a change in the global climate. This article discusses the latter by presenting modelling studies of three meso-scale catchments in Germany. These catchments represent different conditions of land-use, landscape morphology and climate type, therefore showing different dominating flood generation processes. The results of the case studies show how changes of temperature and rainfall regime can lead to significant changes in flood risk. A development towards both an increase or a decrease of the frequency and/or magnitude of flood events is possible, depending mainly on the altered timing of snow accumulation and snowmelt and of a possible shift in rainfall seasonality and intensity.
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Menzel, L., Niehoff, D., Bürger, G., Bronstert, A. (2002). Climate change impacts on river flooding: A modelling study of three meso-scale catchments. In: Beniston, M. (eds) Climatic Change: Implications for the Hydrological Cycle and for Water Management. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47983-4_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47983-4_14
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