Increasing flood magnitude, an effect of climate change or natural climate variability?

The last two decades have seen a number of changes in the magnitude of flood events. In general, the causes of these changes have been attributed to either climate change or natural climate variability. The aim of this paper is to identify changes in the magnitude of flood events recorded in recent...

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Main Author: Dan Dumitriu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Press, Iasi, Romania 2023-11-01
Series:Present Environment and Sustainable Development
Subjects:
Online Access:https://pesd.ro/articole/nr.17/nr.2/pesd2023172001.pdf
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author Dan Dumitriu
author_facet Dan Dumitriu
author_sort Dan Dumitriu
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description The last two decades have seen a number of changes in the magnitude of flood events. In general, the causes of these changes have been attributed to either climate change or natural climate variability. The aim of this paper is to identify changes in the magnitude of flood events recorded in recent decades on the Trotuș River and to attempt to determine the underlying causes. The identification of changes in flood magnitude was based either on the analysis of annual and monthly peak flows or on the analysis of flows above a certain threshold. Based on these data sets, two important parameters characterizing the magnitude of a flood event were quantified: the flood magnitude ratio and the mean annual flood. The analysis of the values of the two parameters revealed that there has been a clear increase in flood magnitude since 2004. At all stations analysed, there were at least 5 flood events with a magnitude at least twice the maximum magnitude of the pre-2004 period between 2004 and 2020. As the changes in magnitude occurred quite rapidly, we believe that they are largely due to natural climatic variability and that the period after 2004 can be considered a flood-rich period.
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spelling doaj.art-4b518c49e50342e7a2dea72d2cc9708b2024-01-15T08:12:08ZengAlexandru Ioan Cuza University Press, Iasi, RomaniaPresent Environment and Sustainable Development2284-78202023-11-01172516https://doi.org/10.47743/pesd2023172001Increasing flood magnitude, an effect of climate change or natural climate variability?Dan Dumitriu0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8902-5455Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Faculty of Geography and GeologyThe last two decades have seen a number of changes in the magnitude of flood events. In general, the causes of these changes have been attributed to either climate change or natural climate variability. The aim of this paper is to identify changes in the magnitude of flood events recorded in recent decades on the Trotuș River and to attempt to determine the underlying causes. The identification of changes in flood magnitude was based either on the analysis of annual and monthly peak flows or on the analysis of flows above a certain threshold. Based on these data sets, two important parameters characterizing the magnitude of a flood event were quantified: the flood magnitude ratio and the mean annual flood. The analysis of the values of the two parameters revealed that there has been a clear increase in flood magnitude since 2004. At all stations analysed, there were at least 5 flood events with a magnitude at least twice the maximum magnitude of the pre-2004 period between 2004 and 2020. As the changes in magnitude occurred quite rapidly, we believe that they are largely due to natural climatic variability and that the period after 2004 can be considered a flood-rich period.https://pesd.ro/articole/nr.17/nr.2/pesd2023172001.pdfmaximum peak dischargflood magnitude ratiomean annual floodlood-rich period
spellingShingle Dan Dumitriu
Increasing flood magnitude, an effect of climate change or natural climate variability?
Present Environment and Sustainable Development
maximum peak discharg
flood magnitude ratio
mean annual flood
lood-rich period
title Increasing flood magnitude, an effect of climate change or natural climate variability?
title_full Increasing flood magnitude, an effect of climate change or natural climate variability?
title_fullStr Increasing flood magnitude, an effect of climate change or natural climate variability?
title_full_unstemmed Increasing flood magnitude, an effect of climate change or natural climate variability?
title_short Increasing flood magnitude, an effect of climate change or natural climate variability?
title_sort increasing flood magnitude an effect of climate change or natural climate variability
topic maximum peak discharg
flood magnitude ratio
mean annual flood
lood-rich period
url https://pesd.ro/articole/nr.17/nr.2/pesd2023172001.pdf
work_keys_str_mv AT dandumitriu increasingfloodmagnitudeaneffectofclimatechangeornaturalclimatevariability