Climate change has led to concerns about increasing river floods resulting from the greater water-holding capacity of a warmer atmosphere(1). These concerns are reinforced by evidence of increasing economic losses associated with flooding in many parts of the world, including Europe(2). Any changes in river floods would have lasting implications for the design of flood protection measures and flood risk zoning. However, existing studies have been unable to identify a consistent continental-scale climatic-change signal in flood discharge observations in Europe(3), because of the limited spatial coverage and number of hydrometric stations. Here we demonstrate clear regional patterns of both increases and decreases in observed river flood discharges in the past five decades in Europe, which are manifestations of a changing climate. Our results-arising from the most complete database of European flooding so far-suggest that: increasing autumn and winter rainfall has resulted in increasing floods in northwestern Europe; decreasing precipitation and increasing evaporation have led to decreasing floods in medium and large catchments in southern Europe; and decreasing snow cover and snowmelt, resulting from warmer temperatures, have led to decreasing floods in eastern Europe. Regional flood discharge trends in Europe range from an increase of about 11 per cent per decade to a decrease of 23 per cent. Notwithstanding the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of the observational record, the flood changes identified here are broadly consistent with climate model projections for the next century(4,5), suggesting that climate-driven changes are already happening and supporting calls for the consideration of climate change in flood risk management.
1.Tech Univ Wien, Inst Hydraul Engn & Water Resources Management, Vienna, Austria 2.Politecn Torino, Dept Environm Land & Infrastruct Engn DIATI, Turin, Italy 3.GFZ German Res Ctr Geosci, Helmholtz Ctr Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany 4.Swedish Meteorol & Hydrol Inst, Norrkoping, Sweden 5.Univ Messina, Dept Engn, Messina, Italy 6.Renewable Energy Syst & Technol, Tirana, Albania 7.Czech Hydrometeorol Inst, Prague, Czech Republic 8.Split Univ, Fac Civil Engn Architecture & Geodesy, Split, Croatia 9.Univ Padua, Dept Land Environm Agr & Forestry, Padua, Italy 10.Univ Zagreb, Dept Geog, Fac Sci, Zagreb, Croatia 11.Univ Bologna, Dept Civil Chem Environm & Mat Engn DICAM, Bologna, Italy 12.Univ Naples Federico II, Dept Agr Sci, Naples, Italy 13.Lomonosov Moscow State Univ, Dept Land Hydrol, Moscow, Russia 14.Ukrainian Hydrometeorol Inst, Dept Hydrol Res, Kiev, Ukraine 15.Dokuz Eylul Univ, Dept Civil Engn, Izmir, Turkey 16.Ctr Ecol & Hydrol, Wallingford, Oxon, England 17.European Ctr Medium Range Weather Forecasts ECMWF, Forecast Dept, Reading, Berks, England 18.Univ Bath, Dept Architecture & Civil Engn, Bath, Avon, England 19.Slovak Univ Technol Bratislava, Dept Land & Water Resources Management, Fac Civil Engn, Bratislava, Slovakia 20.Finnish Environm Inst, Helsinki, Finland 21.Univ Liverpool, Dept Geog & Planning, Liverpool, Merseyside, England 22.Univ Liverpool, Inst Risk & Uncertainty, Liverpool, Merseyside, England 23.Univ Architecture Civil Engn & Geodesy, Sofia, Bulgaria 24.Univ Politecn Madrid, Dept Civil Engn Hydraul Energy & Environm, Madrid, Spain 25.UFZ Helmholtz Ctr Environm Res, Dept Catchment Hydrol, Halle, Germany 26.Swiss Fed Inst Technol, Inst Environm Engn, Zurich, Switzerland 27.Maynooth Univ, Dept Geog, Irish Climate Anal & Res Units ICARUS, Maynooth, Kildare, Ireland 28.Polish Acad Sci, Dept Hydrol & Hydrodynam, Inst Geophys, Warsaw, Poland 29.Odessa State Environm Univ, Hydrometeorol Inst, Odessa, Ukraine 30.Ss Cyril & Methodius Univ, Fac Nat Sci & Math, Inst Geog, Skopje, Macedonia 31.Irstea, UR RiverLy, Lyon, France 32.Univ Ljubljana, Fac Civil & Geodet Engn, Ljubljana, Slovenia 33.Univ Roma Tre, Dept Engn, Rome, Italy 34.Norwegian Water Resources & Energy Directorate, Oslo, Norway 35.Polytech Univ Tirana, IGEWE, Tirana, Albania 36.Univ Belgrade, Fac Geog, Belgrade, Serbia
Recommended Citation:
Bloeschl, Guenter,Hall, Julia,Viglione, Alberto,et al. Changing climate both increases and decreases European river floods[J]. NATURE,2019-01-01,573(7772):108-+