A compilation of data on European flash floods

Eric Gaume (1) , Valérie Bain (2) , Pietro Bernardara (3) , Olivier Newinger (4) , Mihai Barbuc (5) , Allen Bateman (6) , Lotta Blaskovicova (7) , Gunter Bloschl (8) , Marco Borga (9) , Alexandru Dumitrescu (10) , Ioannis Daliakopoulos (11) , Joachim Garcia (6) , Anisoara Irimescu (10) , Silvia Kohnova (12) , Aristeidis Koutroulis (13) , Lorenzo Marchi (14) , Simona Matreata (5) , Vicente Medina (6) , Emanuele Preciso (14) , Daniel Sempere-Torres (15) , Gheorghe Stancalie (10) , Jan Szolgay (12) , Ioannis Tsanis (16) , David Velasco (17) , Alberto Viglione (8)

1 LCPC/EAU - Division Eau et Environnement
2 CEREVE - Centre d'Enseignement et de Recherche Eau Ville Environnement
3 EDF R&D LNHE - Laboratoire National d’Hydraulique et Environnement
4 DDEA
5 NIHWM - National Institute of Hydrology and Water Management [Roumanie]
6 UPC GITS Sediment Transport Research Group Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
7 Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute
8 TU Wien - Vienna University of Technology = Technische Universität Wien
9 Unipd - Università degli Studi di Padova = University of Padua
10 National Meteorological Administration
11 Technical University of Crete Laboratory of Water Resources Managment and Coastal Engineering
12 STU - Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava
13 Technical Universtiy of Crete Laboratory of Water Resources Management and Coastal Engineering
14 IRPI - Istituto di Ricerca per la Protezione Idrogeologica [Padova]
15 Grup de Recerca Aplicada en Hydrometeorologia
16 Technical University of Crete Laboratory of Water Resources Management and Coastal Engineering
17 Grup de Recerca Aplicada en Hydrometeorologia Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya

Flash floods are one of the most significant natural hazards in Europe, causing serious risk to life and destruction of buildings and infrastructure. This type of flood, often affecting ungauged watersheds, remains nevertheless a poorly documented phenomenon. To address the gap in available information, and particularly to assess the possible ranges for peak discharges on watersheds with area smaller than 500 km2 and to describe the geography of the hazard across Europe, an intensive data compilation has been carried out for seven European hydrometeorological regions. This inventory is the first step towards an atlas of extreme flash floods in Europe. It contains over 550 documented events. This paper aims at presenting the data compilation strategy, the content of the elaborated data base and some preliminary data analysis results. The initial observations show that the most extreme flash floods are greater in magnitude in the Mediterranean countries than in the inner continental countries and that there is a strong seasonality to flash flood occurrence revealing different climatic forcing mechanisms in each region.

Mots clés: BASE DE DONNEES; CRUE; PRECIPITATION ATMOSPHERIQUE

Domaines: Hydrologie; Milieux et Changements globaux

Eric Gaume, Valérie Bain, Pietro Bernardara, Olivier Newinger, Mihai Barbuc, et al.. A compilation of data on European flash floods. Journal of Hydrology, 2009, 367 (1-2), pp 70-78. ⟨10.1016/J.jhydrol.2008.12.028⟩. ⟨hal-00400570⟩