Hydrological change: Towards a consistent approach to assess changes on both floods and droughts

Beatriz Quesada-Montano; Giuliano Di Baldassarre; Sally Rangecroft; Anne F. Van Loon

doi:10.1016/j.advwatres.2017.10.038

Hydrological change: Towards a consistent approach to assess changes on both floods and droughts

Beatriz Quesada-Montano, Giuliano Di Baldassarre^*, Sally Rangecroft, Anne F. Van Loon

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Several studies have found that the frequency, magnitude and spatio-temporal distribution of droughts and floods have significantly increased in many regions of the world. Yet, most of the methods used in detecting trends in hydrological extremes 1) focus on either floods or droughts, and/or 2) base their assessment on characteristics that, even though useful for trend identification, cannot be directly used in decision making, e.g. integrated water resources management and disaster risk reduction. In this paper, we first discuss the need for a consistent approach to assess changes on both floods and droughts, and then propose a method based on the theory of runs and threshold levels. Flood and drought changes were assessed in terms of frequency, length and surplus/deficit volumes. This paper also presents an example application using streamflow data from two hydrometric stations along the Po River basin (Italy), Piacenza and Pontelagoscuro, and then discuss opportunities and challenges of the proposed method.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	31-35
Number of pages	5
Journal	Advances in Water Resources
Volume	111
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2017.10.038
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2018
Externally published	Yes

Funding

The present work was developed within the framework of the Panta Rhei Research Initiative of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS), within the two working groups on “Drought in the Anthropocene” and “Flood Risk Changes”. We thank Alberto Montanari for providing critical comments to an earlier version of this paper, and Silvano Pecora, Francesco, Laio and Daniele Ganora for kindly providing the data series. This research was also carried out within the CNDS (Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science) research school, supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) through their contract with the International Science Programme (ISP) at Uppsala University (contract number: 54100006 ). This research is partly funded by NWO Rubicon project no. 2004/08338/ALW .

Funders	Funder number
Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science
Styrelsen för Internationellt Utvecklingssamarbete
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek	2004/08338/ALW
Uppsala Universitet	54100006

Keywords

Anthropocene
Drought
Floods
Human impact
Hydrological extremes

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Hydrological change: Towards a consistent approach to assess changes on both floods and droughts

Abstract

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Keywords

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