Science Source

Understanding flood regime changes in Europe: a state-of-the-art assessment

Reviews the current knowledge on flood regime changes in European rivers that has traditionally been obtained through two alternative research approaches: (1) the data-based detection of changes in observed flood events, and (2) modeled scenarios of future floods
Discusses challenges and opportunities associated with flood change scenarios such as fully accounting for uncertainties in the modeling cascade and feedbacks
Suggests that a synthesis of these two approaches is needed by focusing on long duration records and flood-rich and flood-poor periods rather than on short duration flood trends only, by formally attributing causes of observed flood changes, by validating scenarios against observed flood regime dynamics, and by developing low-dimensional models of flood changes and feedbacks
Finishes with a call for a joint European flood change research network