TY - JOUR
T1 - Interpreting historical, botanical, and geological evidence to aid preparations for future floods
AU - Wilhelm, Bruno
AU - Cánovas, Juan Antonio Ballesteros
AU - Macdonald, Neil
AU - Toonen, Willem H.J.
AU - Baker, Victor
AU - Barriendos, Mariano
AU - Benito, Gerardo
AU - Brauer, Achim
AU - Corella, Juan Pablo
AU - Denniston, Rhawn
AU - Glaser, Rüdiger
AU - Ionita, Monica
AU - Kahle, Michael
AU - Liu, Tao
AU - Luetscher, Marc
AU - Macklin, Mark
AU - Mudelsee, Manfred
AU - Munoz, Samuel
AU - Schulte, Lothar
AU - St. George, Scott
AU - Stoffel, Markus
AU - Wetter, Oliver
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
PY - 2019/1/1
Y1 - 2019/1/1
N2 - River flooding is among the most destructive of natural hazards globally, causing widespread loss of life, damage to infrastructure and economic deprivation. Societies are currently under increasing threat from such floods, predominantly from increasing exposure of people and assets in flood-prone areas, but also as a result of changes in flood magnitude, frequency, and timing. Accurate flood hazard and risk assessment are therefore crucial for the sustainable development of societies worldwide. With a paucity of hydrological measurements, evidence from the field offers the only insight into truly extreme events and their variability in space and time. Historical, botanical, and geological archives have increasingly been recog-nized as valuable sources of extreme flood event information. These different archives are here reviewed with a particular focus on the recording mechanisms of flood information, the historical development of the methodological approaches and the type of information that those archives can provide. These studies provide a wealthy dataset of hundreds of historical and palaeoflood series, whose analysis reveals a noticeable dominance of records in Europe. After describing the diversity of flood information provided by this dataset, we identify how these records have improved and could further improve flood hazard assessments and, thereby, flood management and mitigation plans. This article is categorized under: Science of Water > Water Extremes Engineering Water > Planning Water Science of Water > Methods.
AB - River flooding is among the most destructive of natural hazards globally, causing widespread loss of life, damage to infrastructure and economic deprivation. Societies are currently under increasing threat from such floods, predominantly from increasing exposure of people and assets in flood-prone areas, but also as a result of changes in flood magnitude, frequency, and timing. Accurate flood hazard and risk assessment are therefore crucial for the sustainable development of societies worldwide. With a paucity of hydrological measurements, evidence from the field offers the only insight into truly extreme events and their variability in space and time. Historical, botanical, and geological archives have increasingly been recog-nized as valuable sources of extreme flood event information. These different archives are here reviewed with a particular focus on the recording mechanisms of flood information, the historical development of the methodological approaches and the type of information that those archives can provide. These studies provide a wealthy dataset of hundreds of historical and palaeoflood series, whose analysis reveals a noticeable dominance of records in Europe. After describing the diversity of flood information provided by this dataset, we identify how these records have improved and could further improve flood hazard assessments and, thereby, flood management and mitigation plans. This article is categorized under: Science of Water > Water Extremes Engineering Water > Planning Water Science of Water > Methods.
KW - Flood hazard
KW - historical archive
KW - natural archive
KW - palaeoflood evidence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85138693707&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85138693707&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/WAT2.1318
DO - 10.1002/WAT2.1318
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85138693707
SN - 2049-1948
VL - 6
JO - Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water
JF - Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water
IS - 1
M1 - e1318
ER -