Discharge and floods projected to increase more than precipitation extremes

Felipe Quintero; Gabriele Villarini; Andreas F. Prein; Wei Zhang; Witold F. Krajewski

doi:10.1002/hyp.14738

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Discharge and floods projected to increase more than precipitation extremes

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Discharge and floods projected to increase more than precipitation extremes

Felipe Quintero, Gabriele Villarini, Andreas F. Prein, Wei Zhang and Witold F. Krajewski

Hydrological processes, Vol.36(11), e14738

11/01/2022

DOI: 10.1002/hyp.14738

Appears in UI Libraries Support Open Access

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Published (Version of record)CC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access

Abstract

Floods claim a high toll in fatalities and economic impacts. Despite their societal relevance, there is much more to learn about the projected changes in discharge and flooding. Here we force an operational hydrologic model over the state of Iowa with high-resolution convection-permitting climate-model precipitation to evaluate the response of 140 watersheds to climate change. At the end of the century, under the most aggressive scenario in terms of fossil fuel use, we show that the transition from snow to rainfall and approximately 30% increase in extreme precipitation rates lead to a doubling of maximum discharge during the spring and extending the flood season into the fall. Total discharge volumes are also expected to increase. Our results suggest that flood projections based on extreme precipitation increases alone substantially underestimate future risk due to the non-linearity of the hydrologic response explained by long-term soil moisture memory and its feedbacks with precipitation. This study is one of the first to show floods are increasing due to the prevalence of rain-on-snow events, and indeed that discharge might increase more than precipitation.

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Details

Title: Subtitle: Discharge and floods projected to increase more than precipitation extremes
Creators: Felipe Quintero - University of Iowa
Gabriele Villarini - University of Iowa
Andreas F. Prein - NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research
Wei Zhang - Utah State University
Witold F. Krajewski - University of Iowa
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Hydrological processes, Vol.36(11), e14738
DOI: 10.1002/hyp.14738
ISSN: 0885-6087
eISSN: 1099-1085
Publisher: Wiley
Number of pages: 12
Grant note: National Science Foundation; National Science Foundation (NSF) Iowa Flood Center IIHR-Hydroscience Engineering 1852977 / U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Institute for Water Resources 20-SPR2-002 / Iowa Department of Transportation
Language: English
Date published: 11/01/2022
Academic Unit: Civil and Environmental Engineering; IIHR--Hydroscience and Engineering
Record Identifier: 9984313059602771

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