Deciphering human influence on annual maximum flood extent at the global level

Maurizio Mazzoleni*, Francesco Dottori, Hannah L. Cloke, Giuliano Di Baldassarre

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Human actions are increasingly altering most river basins worldwide, resulting in changes in hydrological processes and extreme events. Yet, global patterns of changes between seasonal surface water and urbanization remain largely unknown. Here we perform a worldwide analysis of 106 large river basins and uncover global trends of annual maximum flood extent and artificial impervious area, as proxy of urbanization, over the past three decades. We explore their relationships with hydroclimatic variability, expressed as rainfall and snowmelt, and find that hydroclimatic variability alone cannot explain changes in annual maximum flood extent in 75% of the analyzed major river basins worldwide. Considering rainfall and urban area together can explain changes in the annual maximum flood extent in 57% of the basins. Our study emphasizes the importance of understanding the global impacts of human presence on changes in seasonal water dynamics.

Original languageEnglish
Article number262
Pages (from-to)1-10
Number of pages10
JournalCommunications Earth and Environment
Volume3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was developed within the activities of the working group on Changes in Flood Risk of the Panta Rhei research initiative of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences. M.M. and G.D.B. were funded by the European Research Council within the project HydroSocialExtremes (grant agreement no. 771678), Formas (the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences, and Spatial Planning) and by the Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science. H.L.C. was supported by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) EVOFLOOD project (The Evolution of Global Flood Risk, grant number NE/S015590/1).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

Funding

This work was developed within the activities of the working group on Changes in Flood Risk of the Panta Rhei research initiative of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences. M.M. and G.D.B. were funded by the European Research Council within the project HydroSocialExtremes (grant agreement no. 771678), Formas (the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences, and Spatial Planning) and by the Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science. H.L.C. was supported by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) EVOFLOOD project (The Evolution of Global Flood Risk, grant number NE/S015590/1).

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