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Megafloods in Europe can be anticipated from observations in hydrologically similar catchments

2023; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 16; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/s41561-023-01300-5

1752-0908

Miriam Bertola, Günter Blöschl, Miloň Boháč, Marco Borga, Attilio Castellarin, Giovanni Battista Chirico, Pierluigi Claps, Eleonora Dallan, Irina Danilovich, Daniele Ganora, Liudmyla Gorbachova, Ondřej Ledvinka, Maria Mavrova-Guirguinova, Alberto Montanari, Valeriya Ovcharuk, Alberto Viglione, Elena Volpi, Berit Arheimer, Giuseppe Tito Aronica, Ognjen Bonacci, Ivan Čanjevac, A. Csík, Н. Л. Фролова, B. Gnandt, Zoltán Gribovszki, Ali Gül, K. P. Günther, Björn Guse, Jamie Hannaford, Shaun Harrigan, Maria Kireeva, Silvia Kohnová, Jürgen Komma, Jūratė Kriaučiūnienė, Brian Kronvang, Deborah Lawrence, Stefan Lüdtke, Luis Mediero, Bruno Merz, Péter Molnár, Conor Murphy, Dijana Oskoruš, Marzena Osuch, Juraj Párajka, Laurent Pfister, Иван Радевски, Éric Sauquet, Kai Schröter, Mojca Šraj, Ján Szolgay, Stephen Turner, Peter Valent, Noora Veijalainen, Philip J. Ward, Nenad Živković, Patrick Willems,

Hydrology and Drought Analysis

Megafloods that far exceed previously observed records often take citizens and experts by surprise, resulting in extremely severe damage and loss of life. Existing methods based on local and regional information rarely go beyond national borders and cannot predict these floods well because of limited data on megafloods, and because flood generation processes of extremes differ from those of smaller, more frequently observed events. Here we analyse river discharge observations from over 8,000 gauging stations across Europe and show that recent megafloods could have been anticipated from those previously observed in other places in Europe. Almost all observed megafloods (95.5%) fall within the envelope values estimated from previous floods in other similar places on the continent, implying that local surprises are not surprising at the continental scale. This holds also for older events, indicating that megafloods have not changed much in time relative to their spatial variability. The underlying concept of the study is that catchments with similar flood generation processes produce similar outliers. It is thus essential to transcend national boundaries and learn from other places across the continent to avoid surprises and save lives. European river discharge observations suggest that catchments with similar flood generation processes produce similar extremes, enabling better predictability of megafloods using a continental scale perspective.