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Floods in future climates: a review

P.H. Whitfield1,2
1 Meteorological Service of Canada, Environment Canada, Vancouver, BC, Canada
2 Department of Earth Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada

Correspondence
Paul H. Whitfield, Meteorological Service
of Canada, Environment Canada,
Vancouver, BC, V6C 3S5, Canada
Fax: +604 464 0388
Email: paul.whitfield@ec.gc.ca
DOI: 10.1111/j.1753-318X.2012.01150.x
Key words
Climate change; floods; land use;
modelling.
Abstract
At the global scale, the warming of the atmosphere will increase the capacity of
the atmosphere to hold and accelerate the redistribution of water in the atmos-
phere. This suggests that flood-generating processes linked to the atmosphere
are likely to increase. However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
projections of future floods involve extremely complex issues that defy simple
generalisations. Warming will alter other aspects of the water cycle increasing
evaporation, changing precipitation patterns and intensity, and also affecting
the processes involved in surface storage of water, including snowpack genera-
tion, snowmelt, river ice break-up, and glacial melt. Many of these are active in
flood generation, and changes may cause floods to decrease as well as increase.
However, these processes take place not at the global scale but at relatively local
scale, making generalisations about flooding in future climates difficult and
uncertain. At the global scale, the role of land use is generally unresolved, but at
a watershed scale, land-use effects can be as important as changes in the mete-
orological processes. This review shows that while meteorologically driven
flooding is expected to increase in a changed climate, making a precise pro-
nouncement regarding all floods is unwise, as many types of floods will respond
differently to changing climate and that because floods are watershed scale
events, these local effects will remain important.

Introduction what might happen in the future related to climate requires

Flooding is a rising and overflowing of a body of water
especially onto normally dry land. This can occur directly
when rainfall is of sufficient quantity that the land surface
cannot absorb and redistribute water fast enough to prevent
a surface accumulation of water, or floods can occur indi-
rectly such as when a river overflows its banks. River flooding
is primarily, but not exclusively, caused by hydrometeoro-
logical conditions acting either individually or in combina-
tion (Watt, 1989; Andrews, 1993). These floods occur in the
form of excess snowmelt run-off, rain, rain-on-snow, and ice
jams or other natural dams. Most forms of hydrometeoro-
logical flooding might change in future climates, and these
are focused on here. Other flooding forms that occur are
excluded from this discussion: coastal flooding associated
with sea-level rise, storm surges where sea water inundates
coastal areas, and those that result from the failure of man-
made structures such as dams, dykes, and water mains.
Flooding is unfortunately a general term that includes a wide
variety of events and processes that lead to an accumulation
of surface water on land that is normally dry. Understanding
considering the specific processes that lead to a particular
type of flood.
Intensification of the global water cycle will change the
flood risk (Milly et al., 2002). The detection of anthro-
pogenic forced changes in flooding is difficult because of
natural variability, and the connection of streamflow trends
to flow regime. Focusing on floods with long return periods
(>100 years) on large basins (>200 000 km2) Milly et al.
(2002) showed that a substantial increase in frequency of
floods has occurred in the 20th century.
Globally, the cost of flood damage between 1991 and 1995
was put at €170 billion. Floods are the most common
natural disaster in Europe and the most costly in terms of
economic damage. European floods in 2002 caused more
than €7 billion damage. The number of high-magnitude
floods appears to be increasing over time (Figure 1). In
Canada, Brooks et al. (2001) note that over the last century,
flood damages in Canada have exceeded over $2 billion, with
over 198 lives lost. The ‘flood of the century’ in Southern
Manitoba was caused by a combination of hydrometeoro-
logical factors beginning with high antecedent soil moisture,

© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada J Flood Risk Management 5 (2012) 336–365
Journal of Flood Risk Management © 2012 The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
Changing floods in future climates
Large Magnitude Floods 1985–2009
350
>7.
300 <7
Annual number of floods
<6
<5
250
<4
200 <3
150
100
50
0 While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Figure 1 Global count of large and very large magnitude
flood events. The flood magnitude M = log(Duration x Severity x
Affected area). Duration is in days, area in km2, severity is classed
as 1 (for less that 20-year return period), 1.5 (less that 100-year
return period), or 2 (greater than 100-year return period). Data
obtained from the Dartmouth Flood Observatory. http://
www.dartmouth.edu/~floods/ (Brakenridge et al. 2009).
and heavy winter snowfall and a rapid spring melt. Although
there was no direct loss of life, damages (including flood
fighting costs) were estimated at being $500 million in
Canada and over $2 billion in total (International Joint
Commission (IJC), 2000). Changes in future climates to
flood damage and risk could be enormous. In Britain, King
and Walker (2008) suggests that the probability of floods on
rivers and coasts by 2080 will increase between 2 and 20
times, annual flood damages will rise from £1 billion to £21
billion by 2080, and concurrently, the number of people
living in areas at risk from flooding will be more than
double.
Humans have always found it useful to live and work
along rivers and lakes. Likely, the first attractions were as
sources of food and drinking water. With the earliest settle-
ments, the attraction also included access to water for irri-
gation and transportation. Today, this also includes power
generation, commerce, and recreation. Riverbanks and flood
plains are also attractive for agriculture, aesthetics, and as a
way of disposing of wastes. Over several thousand years,
cities, settlements, and other infrastructure have increas-
ingly encroached into the floodplain. As the encroachment
increases, the actual damages and potential risks from flood-
ing have increased. Flood severity and risk are in part deter-
mined by human activities, both within the flood plain and
in upland areas. Changes in land-use and drainage patterns
resulting from agricultural activities and urbanisation may
greatly increase the risk of flooding. Population growth is
likely to increase the number of people at risk independent
of any changes in flood generation based on climate. The
impacts of future floods will depend largely upon the adap-
tation choices that are made in relation to the projected
changes in flooding. Human ingenuity has developed
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337
adaptation measures such as dams, dykes, and diversions as
engineering solutions to reduce and mitigate flood risks.
Dams provide upstream storage so that floodwater can be
detained or delayed. Dykes confine the river to its channel
and prevent water flowing onto the floodplain, and diver-
sions allow flood waters to be conveyed either around
a settlement or to another river system. Frequently, such
measures are accompanied by complacency or ignorance.
People who work or reside in the floodplain are unaware or
uninformed of the residual risks of floods.
2010 (IPCC) is certain that floods will increase in future climates,
there is considerable uncertainty in the exact nature of how
this will evolve largely because floods are generated by a wide
variety of hydroclimatological events. At the same time, sci-
entists use different tools to study floods largely statistics and
models, and these too play a role in how we think about
floods in future climates. The intent of this review is to
provide insight to this complexity.
There are a number of ways that people might think
about floods (Borga et al., 2008), such as ‘Why did this flood
occur?’, ‘How often can a flood like this be expected?’, or
‘How big a flood is possible?’ These and other questions
have been approached through statistical analysis and mod-
elling, some details of which follow later. A classic approach
to flooding is estimating the probable maximum precipita-
tion (PMP) and the probable maximum flood (PMF). The
PMF is calculated as the flood generated by the most severe
combination of possible meteorological events, which often
is the result of the greatest amount of liquid precipitation
possible at a site at a particular time of year, referred to as
the PMP. Generally, dams where failure is of high conse-
quence are designed to safely pass the PMF, which is defined
by the United States Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(2001) as ‘the flood that may be expected from the most
severe combination of critical meteorological and hydro-
logical conditions that are reasonably possible in the drain-
age basin under study’. Theoretically, the probability of
exceedance of the PMF is zero, and hence, the dam can
safely pass all floods. Other regulatory bodies provide a
similar definition (e.g. Canadian Dam Association, 1999).
Unlike the PMP, the estimation of the PMF uses historical
streamflow data, and as more data are available, the PMF is
periodically re-estimated. As new data are added, the revised
PMF may become significantly higher. For example, Jarrett
and Tomlinson (2000) provided an example where the
revised PMF for Olympus Dam in Colorado was almost
four times larger than the original estimate. When this situ-
ation occurs, the existing spillway for a dam may be unable
to pass the revised PMF and the dam would fail the periodic
dam safety review, leading to expensive spillway re-design
and re-construction. There is therefore considerable
concern about the validity and robustness of techniques
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
338
used for PMF estimation, including estimating PMF in
future climates. While the PMF is a useful concept for
designing spillways for dams, many floods are generated by
specific mechanisms that do not lend themselves to the PMP
approach.
This review is structured in the following way. First, a
typology of floods, flood mechanisms, and watersheds is
presented as a framework for comparing and contrasting
different types of floods. Second, the IPCC (2004, 2007)
perspectives on floods in past and future climates are
reviewed. Third, some fundamental issues that are impor-
tant from the perspective of the assumptions and the uncer-
tainty of the analysis and modelling of all floods are
reviewed. Fourth, the literature on detected changes in mete-
orological and hydrological flood frequency and magnitude
in the recent past are reviewed. Fifth, the issues of modelling
future climates and future floods are summarised. This is
followed by some remarks on reducing future risk, and
finally, some final remarks.
Typology of floods, flood mechanisms,
and catchments
Flooding itself is a term that is simultaneously simple and
excruciatingly complex. A flood is simply too much water;
however, the complexity lies in how and why there is too
much water. Floods involve both atmospheric and hydro-
logical processes, processes that differ with scales and with
geography. Changes in the climate will affect the wide variety
of atmospheric and hydrological processes with differing
impacts on the nature and timing of floods.
Merz and Blöschl (2003) proposed a useful regional typol-
ogy for Austrian floods. They propose using a catchment
perspective focused on the catchment state and atmospheric
inputs. Their typology uses a number of process indicators
such as the timing of floods, storm duration, rainfall depths,
snowmelt, catchment state, run-off response dynamics, and
spatial coherence. For Austria, they report that 43% are long-
rain and only 3% snowmelt, and the relative contribution
of the types changes with the magnitude. There are pro-
nounced spatial patterns of frequency of flood types – for
example, most rain-on-snow floods occur in northern
Austria. There are pronounced spatial and temporal patterns
in flood type occurrence. Flash floods driven by convective
storms or other intense rainfall are local and highly variable.
Flood types such as ice jam, tropical storms, snowmelt, and
rain-on-snow have strong regional and geographical pat-
terns. For example, Merz and Blöschl (2003) show that in
Northern Austria, rain-on-snow floods occur most com-
monly. All types of Austria floods exhibit seasonal patterns,
both in terms of flood magnitudes and catchment altitudes
of flood occurrence. This type of typology is a useful and
appropriate approach for regional scales.
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
Journal of Flood Risk Management © 2012 The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
Whitfield
When considering floods from a global perspective, it is
important that floods be compared and contrasted within a
more general typology, one that could be considered a
broader form of that used by Merz and Blöschl (2003). Such
a typology is suggested in Table 1. The relevant generating
processes and their connection to specific geographical
regions and landscapes, given in Table 1, demonstrate the
wide variety of types and the specific connections to land-
scapes that exist. One could envisage that the typology of
Merz and Blöschl (2003) would be nested within this more
general form. This typology can, and will here, be used to
structure a discussion of the occurrence and changes in
floods associated with climatic change. Consideration of
changes in floods related to climate need to assess both the
changes in generating mechanism and the regions or land-
scapes that will be affected to avoid false generalities.
Table 1 also contains the number and the frequency of
occurrence for the period between 1985 and 2009 based
upon this typology. More that 90% of floods in this period
are attributed to meteorological processes with hydrological
processes, only contributing about 5% of the events. In
future climates, changes to precipitation regimes will affect
many, but not all, of these types; changes in temperature will
affect ones where frozen forms of water are involved. While
Table 1 includes all types of floods, the principal focus of this
review is on climate-related floods (meteorological and
hydrological) and the other types (landscape, tidal, and
other), which constitute less than 3% of the reported events
that are not discussed further.
In the same way that a flood typology provides a basis for
comparing floods based on generating mechanisms, the
nature of the catchment is also important to ensure that the
landscape effects on floods are compared on a similar basis.
Catchment conditions and particularly the antecedent con-
ditions are important, as they can modify the impacts of
flood-generating processes. While a detailed typology of
catchments is beyond the scope of this review, some exam-
ples given later will help illustrate the importance of the
catchment landscape conditions.
In addition to threats from river or lake floods, urban
centres can also experience intense rains that overwhelm
natural and man-made drainage systems. Urban areas are
subject to both locally generated floods because of intense
rainfall and also to river-based floods where the floodwaters
arrive from upstream. Smith and Bedient (1981) modelled
an urban floodplain under changing land use and with dif-
ferent rainfall patterns. Smith et al. (2002) combines cli-
matic, hydrological, and socio-economic information to
assess the policy implications of urban flooding in three
Australian catchment areas. They found that in each catch-
ment, there is a sharp increase in the number of flood-prone
buildings above the flood level corresponding with the
current 100-year return period. This results in a climate
J Flood Risk Management 5 (2012) 336–365
 Table 1 A proposed typology of floods, based upon flood-generating processes. Also shown are associated geographical regions and/or landscapes, and their number and frequency
of occurrence 1885–2009
Frequency Total for
Class/type of flood Flood-generating process Region or zone Landscape Number (%) class (%)
Meteorological 92.40
Brief torrential rain Convective cells, thunderstorms, may be isolated or coupled to 297 8.49
monsoon, or other large system may produce flash floods.
Extra-tropical storm Extensive low pressure system that may move large quantities of Midlatitudes Coastal areas 19 0.54
water (e.g. Pineapple Express)
Heavy rain Synoptic scale systems 2235 63.89

J Flood Risk Management 5 (2012) 336–365

Monsoonal rain Heavy precipitation alternates with hot, dry conditions on an Subtropics 280 8.00
Changing floods in future climates

annual basis because of the seasonal reversal in surface winds

caused by an oscillation between high- and low-pressure cells.
Torrential rain The amount of rain is particularly abundant, had a fast on-set, 27 0.77
and/or lasts for a long period of time.
Tropical cyclone Extensive deep low-pressure system with winds in excess of speed Tropics Coastal areas 348 9.95
threshold.
Tropical storm Extensive low-pressure system Tropics Coastal areas 26 0.74
Hydrological 4.97
Rain-on-snow Rate of snowmelt is enhanced by rain and warmer temperature Northern latitudes/high Mountainous 84 2.40
leading to more rapid melt. elevations
Snowmelt Large accumulations of water in snowpack and rate of melt Northern latitudes/high Mountainous 60 1.72
elevations
Ice jam/break-up Rising water levels break surface ice on rivers and lakes that forms Northern latitudes 30 0.86
a jam-impounding water, increasing water levels upstream during
and downstream flowing failure
Natural event 0.14
Avalanche-related Snow pack stability failure creates ponding of surface water Mountainous 2 0.06
increasing water levels upstream during and downstream following
failure
Landslide Landform stability failure creates ponding of surface water, Mountainous 1 0.03
increasing water levels upstream during and downstream following
failure
Outburst flood Glacial dam fails releasing impounded water increasing water Glacierised basins 2 0.06
levels downstream flowing failure
Other 1.14
Tidal surge Coastal areas 4 0.11
Not determined 36 1.03
Human induced 1.34
dam/levy, break Structural failure 47 1.34
Total 3498 100

Frequency data were obtained from the Dartmouth Flood Data Observatory. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~floods/.1
Some minor corrections and recategorisations were made to the original data.
339

© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada

Journal of Flood Risk Management © 2012 The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
340
change damage curve that resembles a step function. Smith
et al. (2002) therefore recommends both no-regret and pre-
cautionary measures to be taken within the current frame-
work of local government response. Rustam et al. (2000)
assessed the impact of urbanisation on flood frequency in
Malaysia. They conclude that increases in flood frequency
were attributable to changes in rainfall intensity and not to
the drastic land-use changes from natural vegetation to turf.
Schreider et al. (2000) assessed climate change impacts on
urban flooding in three catchments in Southern Australia.
The modelling using a general circulation model (GCM), a
stochastic weather generator, and the conceptual hydrologic
model IHACRES indicates that there will be increases in
magnitude and frequency of flooding under increased CO2
atmosphere; in these three urban cases, the 1 in 100-year
event becomes 1 in 44, 1 in 35, and 1 in 10 events. Liu et al.
(2006) examined storm run-off from different land-use
classes using a geographic information system (GIS)-based
hydrological model. The model shows that direct run-off
from urban areas is dominant for flood events compared
with other land-use types and is larger for small floods and
dry-season floods. Hejazi and Moglen (2008) showed that
increased precipitation in the Hadley model output resulted
in increased peak flows; they also showed that land-use
change coupled to climate changes leads to larger flood mag-
nitudes that climate alone. Hejazi and Markus (2009) exam-
ined annual flood peaks on 12 urbanising watersheds and
found an increase in frequency and magnitude that could be
attributed to intensive urbanisation and increasing inci-
dences of heavy rain. Here, urbanisation was the bigger effect
– some 34% greater than the climate variability. McCormick
et al. (2009) similarly showed that while climate had a
similar effect on two study watersheds, land-use changes
increased the magnitude of the flood peak and decreased the
lag time between the rainfall and the ensuing flood event.
In cold regions, ice jams are a major cause of flooding. In
fact, for most Canadian rivers, the annual peak water levels
are due to ice jams. Ice jams result from the accumulation of
ice fragments that build up to restrict the flow of water and
then act as a temporary obstruction. Jams may form during
both the freeze-up and break-up periods, but it is usually the
break-up jams that have the greater flooding potential when
rising water levels fragment the ice cover and result in the
greatest flooding potential. Changes in climate, particularly
warming, may either increase or reduce the frequency and
magnitude of these events depending upon geographic.
Generally, the reduction will follow the present southern
extent and increase in the northern. Prowse et al. (2002)
show more events recorded at southern boundary in recent
past and fewer events at the northern boundary but increas-
ing since the 1950s. Boucher et al. (2009) reconstructed
flood events from ice scars on trees and showed that early
rapidly rising floods that create intense events; they associate
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
Journal of Flood Risk Management © 2012 The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
Whitfield
these events with warmer periods in the climate record and
not wetter periods. Changes in the flooding regime of the
Peace-Athabasca delta, located in Northern Alberta, have
been attributed to a decrease in ice-jam frequency because of
both climate changes and river regulation (Prowse and
Conly, 1996). This in turn has resulted in the decline of fish
and wildlife habitats and the disruption of the entire ecosys-
tem. Infrequent, large flood events can also cross the erosive
thresholds along alluvial rivers and result in catastrophic
erosion along valley bottoms. Such erosion represents a
major risk from flooding that can occur in addition to inun-
dation damage from floodwaters and can result in significant
losses of property and infrastructure, even when these are
situated above the flood level. Livingston et al. (2009) exam-
ined ice-jam flooding in the Yukon River, reconstructing
ice-jam flood histories; these histories suggest a decrease in
the frequency of flood events in the last several hundred
years. Return period of ice-jam floods tends to be lower than
open-water events. Extremes can extend into flood levels not
considered for open-water events and are often ignored
when considering flood risk because flood analyses tend to
be focused on river discharges and not water levels.
While it is not possible to identify all the attributes of all
flood events, Table 2 provides a summary of the multiple
processes involved in generating and modifying individual
events including their impacts. Not all of these will be active
during any one event or in one catchment, as typically
several mechanisms and modifying factors can be identi-
fied. Seasonal variation in these factors is also an important
consideration. When considering a question about changes
in floods in the future, these factors need to be considered
so that observed or projected changes can be properly
attributed.
The IPCC perspective on floods in
future climates
Kundzewicz and Schellnhuber (2004) considered how
the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) (IPCC, 2004)
addressed floods. The TAR reported that recent floods have
become more abundant and more destructive. However,
the important question is what proportion of the rise in
damages can be attributed to climate variability and change.
It is clear that with the increased water-holding capacity of a
warmer atmosphere potential for increased precipitation
intensity is expected (IPCC, 2004). This trend has already
been observed, and the trends are expected to continue
(IPCC, 2004). This condition alone is sufficient to expect the
flood hazard to increase; however, floods damages are also
strongly affected by exposure of assets and people, and
flood-generating processes in addition to precipitation.
Interestingly, in the TAR chapters on physical basis, the
emphasis is on the uncertainty of changes to the flood risk;
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Changing floods in future climates 341

Table 2 Flood-generating processes, inundation types, and modifying processes and risks
Flood-generating processes Inundation types Modifying conditions Risk modifiers
Human induced • River floods • Precipitation intensity • Flood-plain elevation
dam/levy, break • Flash floods • Precipitation volume • Human encroachment
Meteorological • Urban floods • Precipitation timing • Flood preparation
Brief torrential rain • Sewer floods • Precipitation phase (rain or snow)
Extra-tropical storm • Ice-jam floods • Antecedent river conditions
Heavy rain • Glacial lake outburst • Antecedent watershed conditions
Monsoonal rain floods • Antecedent urban conditions
Torrential rain • Status (frozen or not frozen)
Tropical cyclone
Tropical storm
Hydrological
Rain-on-snow
Snowmelt
Ice jam/break-up
Natural event
Avalanche-related
Landslide
Outburst flood
Other
Tidal surge

The flood-generating processes are described in more detail in Table 1. Many of these factors exhibit seasonal variation.

in the TAR chapters on impacts, increased flooding of future
climates appears to be taken for granted.
In the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) (IPCC,
2007), the impacts of changing climate on the variety of
climatic and nonclimatic processes that influence flood proc-
esses are described in general. The Working Group I AR4
Summary for Policymakers concluded that it is likely that the
frequency of heavy precipitation events has increased over
most areas during the late 20th century and that it is more
likely than not that there has been a human contribution to
this trend. Changes in the frequency and magnitude of river
floods, flash floods, urban floods, sewer floods, glacial lake
outburst floods, and coastal floods are considered. The
climate sensitivity of flood-producing processes including
intense and/or long-lasting precipitation, snowmelt, dam
failures, reduced conveyance because of ice jams or land-
slides, or by intense storms are also covered. Because the
majority of floods depend on precipitation intensity, volume,
timing, phase (rain or snow), antecedent conditions of rivers,
and their drainage basins [e.g. presence of snow and ice, soil
character and status (frozen or not, saturated or unsatu-
rated), wetness, rate and timing of snow/ice melt, urbanisa-
tion, existence of dykes, dams and reservoirs], all are expected
to be impacted by changes in climate.
At the same time, AR4 indicates that human encroach-
ment into flood plains and the lack of flood response plans
also increases the damage potential. The AR4 observes that
increased precipitation intensity and other climatic changes,
e.g. an increase in westerly weather patterns during winter
over Europe, leading to very rainy low-pressure systems that
often trigger floods. (Kron and Berz, 2007) indicate that
climate change might already have had an impact on the
intensity and frequency of floods. Globally, the number of
great inland flood catastrophes that occurred during the last
10 years (1996–2005) is twice as large, per decade, as between
1950 and 1980, while related economic losses have increased
by a factor of five (Kron and Berz, 2007). Dominant drivers
of the upward trend of flood damage are socio-economic
factors, such as economic growth, increases in population
and in the wealth concentrated in vulnerable areas, and land-
use change. Floods have been the most reported natural
disaster events in many regions, affecting 140 million people
per year on average [World Bank (WDR), 2003, 2004].
In Bangladesh, during the 1998 flood, about 70% of the
country’s area was inundated (compared with an average
value of 20–25%) (Mirza, 2002; Mirza et al., 2003; Clarke
and King, 2004).
The weight of observational evidence indicates an
ongoing acceleration of the water cycle (Huntington, 2006).
The frequency of heavy precipitation events has increased,
consistent with both warming and observed increases in
atmospheric water vapour. However, no ubiquitous increase
is visible in documented trends in high river flows. Although
Milly et al. (2002) identified an apparent increase in the fre-
quency of ‘large’ floods (return period >100 years) across
much of the globe from the analysis of data from large river
basins, subsequent studies have provided less widespread
evidence. Kundzewicz et al. (2005) found increases (in 27
locations) and decreases (in 31 locations) and no trend in
the remaining 137 of the 195 catchments they examined

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342
Table 3 Summary of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I (WG I) and II (WG II) comments on changes detected
in floods and flood-generating processes in the past
Flood process Projection
Heavy precipitation It is likely that the frequency of heavy precipitation
events events has increased, and it is more likely than not
that there has been a human contribution to this
trend.
Intense Increased rainfall intensity with increased
precipitation extra-tropical lows (WG I)
Increased frequency of midlatitude storms (WG I)
Extra-tropical Intense extra-tropical storms have shown significant
storms increases in number or strength (WG I)
Changes in storm tracks have been noted (WG I).
High river flows An apparent increase in the frequency of ‘large’
floods (return period >100 years).
Kundewicz et al. (2005) found increases in 27
locations and decreases in 31, and no change in 137
locations
Number of inland The number of inland floods in the past 10 years is
floods twice as large per decade as between 1950 and 1980.
Number of inland The damages associated have increased by a factor
floods of five.
worldwide. However, because flood damages have grown
more rapidly than population or economic growth, other
factors must be considered, including climate change (Mills,
2005).
The IPCC AR4 reports from Working Groups I and II
(WG I – The Physical Science Basis) and (WG II – Impacts,
Adaptation and Vulnerability) comments extensively about
recent changes (detection) and future projections. Table 3
summarises the comments the 4AR made with respect to
detected changes in floods and flood-generating processes.
The evidence suggests that the global water cycle has accel-
erated and that the frequency of heavy precipitation events
has increased, consistent with both warming and observed
increases in atmospheric water vapour. It is very likely that
heavy precipitation is occurring more frequently, and this
change is attributed to human contributions to climate
change. There is also evidence of increased intensity and
changes in storm tracks. However, the IPCC reports that no
consistent increase in flooding has been detected.
The IPCC AR4 also has considerable discussion of future
climates based largely on GCM/scenario projections with
respect to flood-generating processes. It is very likely that
heavy precipitation events will become more frequent. The
intensity of these events will increase particularly in tropical
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
Journal of Flood Risk Management © 2012 The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
Whitfield
Rationale (WG I) (WG II)
Increased frequency of very rainy low pressure
systems (WG I).
The frequency of heavy precipitation events has
increased, consistent with both warming and
observed increases in atmospheric water vapour
(WG I).
The fact that the energy budget constrains increases
in large-scale mean precipitation but extreme
precipitation relates to increases in moisture content
(WG I).
Timescale can play a role, whereby increase in
seasonal mean rainfall extremes can be greater than
the increases in the frequency of daily extremes
(WG I).
No ubiquitous increase is visible in documented
trends in high river flows (WG II).
The weight of the observational evidence indicates
ongoing acceleration of water cycle (WG II).
Large role for socio-economic and population
growth, land-use change and concentration of wealth
in these areas (WG II).
and high latitudes where mean precipitation increases. There
is a projected increase in the risk of intense precipitation and
flooding in dry areas where despite increases in the number
of days without rain, intense and heavy episodic rainfall
events are not expected to decrease. There is a risk of an
increase in very wet monsoonal rain in Asia. Tropical
cyclones are also likely to become more severe with greater
wind speeds and more intense precipitation; this may
include a decrease in weak cyclones and an increase in the
number of intense cyclones and a global decrease in the total
number of tropical cyclones. A poleward shift of storm activ-
ity by several degrees latitude with more cyclonic activity in
winter and summer over the Arctic is expected. The projec-
tions made in the 4AR with respect to flooding are summa-
rised in Table 4. With respect to floods, some studies have
shown little change, while others suggest that what is now a
100-year flood will occur more frequently and today’s 1 in
500 year event could become a 1 in 50-year event. At present,
flooding is responsible for 10% of weather-related insurance
losses globally (IPCC, 2007).
The IPCC has a formidable challenge when addressing
floods as the detection and projection of ‘floods’ with simple
generalisation causes considerable confusion. Because a
variety of climatic and nonclimatic factors influence the
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Changing floods in future climates 343

Table 4 Summary of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I (WG I) and II (WG II) comments on floods and
flood-generating processes in future

Flood process Projection Rationale (WG I)

Heavy precipitation It is very likely that heavy precipitation events will Increased risk of flash and urban flooding (WG II).
events become more frequent. The intensity of these Timescale can play a role, whereby increase in
events will increase particularly in tropical and seasonal mean rainfall extremes can be greater that
high latitudes where mean precipitation increases. the increases in the frequency of daily extremes
(WG I)
Intense There is a projected increase in the risk of intense The probability of boreal winter precipitation
precipitation precipitation and flooding in dry areas where exceeding two standard deviations above normal
despite increases in the number of days without increases considerably (WG II). Likely increase in
rain, intense and heavy episodic rainfall events are winter flood hazard.
not expected to decrease.
Monsoonal rain An increase in the risk of very wet monsoonal rain Greater summer precipitation increases flood risk in
in Asia. Asian Monsoon region (WG I).
Tropical cyclones Tropical cyclones are likely to become more severe Longer lifetimes and greater intensity (WG I).
with greater wind speeds and more intense
precipitation (WG I)
Possibly, a decrease in weak cyclones and an
increase in the number of intense cyclones and a
global decease in the total number of tropical
cyclones.
Extra-tropical There is a poleward shift of several degrees
storms latitude; more cyclonic activity in winter and
summer over the Arctic (WG I)
Some studies have shown little change (WG I).
Flood frequency What is now a 100-year flood is projected to occur
more frequently – even every 2–3 years (WG II).
What is now a 100-year flood is projected to occur
more frequently – even every 2–3 years and
today’s 1 in 500-year event could become a 1 in
50-year event (WG I).
Snowmelt Contribution for snow to snowmelt is likely to Studies indicate a decrease in peak snowmelt floods
decline (WG II). by the 2080s (WG II).
Increase in floods in areas where winter snow
depth increases (WG I).
Glacier melt Reduction in firn (aged snow) cover on glaciers
causes enhanced and immediate run-off of melt
water and cause local flooding (WG II).
Degree of Depending upon which climate model is used and
uncertainty on the importance of snowmelt to generating
floods, catchment characteristics, the impact can
be positive or negative (WG II).
Interactions Future flood damages will depend on settlement The impact can be modelled using changes in the
patterns, land-use decisions, flood-forecasting recurrence interval of present floods (WG II).
warning and response systems, and the value of
structures and property in vulnerable areas (WG II)
as well as on climatic changes.
Urban flooding Block storm drains in poor areas can cause Increases in precipitation with expanding impervious
flooding and increased transmission of surfaces could increase urban flood risks and create
water-borne disease. (WG II). design challenges for storm water management
Cities with combined sewer overflows risk. (WG I).
Flooding may lead to contamination of water
with chemicals, heavy metals, or hazardous
substances (WG II).
Increased flooding impacts navigation and Costs of delays and lost trips are low compared with
shipping (WG II). the damage to infrastructure and property (WG II).
Flooding of streets, subways, and accompanying
landslides damages to infrastructure.

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344
Table 4 Continued
Flood process Projection
Adaptation Appropriate investments in infrastructure, and
water and land-use management. Coordinated
planning (WG II).
US National Flood Insurance Program made policy
changes to reduce the risk of multiple flood
claims. Households with two flood-related claims
are now required to elevate the structure 2.5 cm
above the 100-year flood level (WG I).
processes that generate floods and because the degree of
flood risks also depends on several factors, many combina-
tions would need to be considered. As temperatures rise, the
energy budget constrains increases in large-scale mean pre-
cipitation, but extreme precipitation relates to increases in
moisture content. As temperatures rise, the likelihood of
precipitation falling as rain rather than snow increases.
Rain-on-snow flood events are generally projected to
increase, while snowmelt-induced floods are often projected
to be earlier and of lower magnitude. Depending upon
which GCMs are used and also the relative importance of
snowmelt contribution in flood volumes, catchment char-
acteristics, and location, the impacts of climate change on
floods can be positive or negative. While the IPCC suggests
that this highlights the uncertainty about floods, it is actu-
ally the correct outcome; floods generated by different proc-
esses on different landscape will respond differently to
changing climate.
Complexities of studying present floods
Before considering changes to floods in the future, the reader
should be aware that there are many complex and unresolved
issues associated with study of present floods. Conventional
flood analysis focuses on providing an estimate of the design
flow magnitude that is without bias while making many
assumptions and estimates (Arnell, 1988). These issues are
important background for any consideration of change
either in the past or in the future. Because floods are extreme
and relatively rare events, it is difficult to measure them,
difficult to determine their statistical properties, and difficult
to model them. Most studies of changes in floods related to
climate make many assumptions about these aspects of
floods, and much of that literature makes no comment about
the assumptions. The brief summary presented later consid-
ers two key aspects, the issues with respect to statistical treat-
ment of floods and the modelling of floods; however, this is
not an exhaustive list. Research is active in all the areas
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
Journal of Flood Risk Management © 2012 The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
Whitfield
Rationale (WG I)
When it experienced two 100-year events in 3 years,
Peterborough ON flushed the drainage systems ad
replaced sewer trunk systems (WG I).
To cope with a 15% increase in heavy precipitation,
Ottawa employed structural and nonstructural
measures to encourage infiltration (WG I)
Set backs and flood plain delineations seldom make
allowances for climate change (WG I).
described later, and the methods being used and the under-
standing of floods continue to grow.
Statistical issues
One of the often unstated aspects of the study of floods is
the high uncertainty of the measurement of floods and
the resulting effect on streamflow records. McCuen (1979)
provides definitions of statistical terminology for flood-peak
estimation. His focus was on how correct terminology
would assist in evaluating ‘How accurate is the estimate?’
Data uncertainties, which are the principal contributors to
parameter uncertainty, include (1) measurement errors, (2)
inconsistent or heterogeneous data sets, (3) data handling
and transcription errors, and (4) nonrepresentative sam-
pling caused by time, space, or financial limitations. While
many observations of floods have been made, the actual
discharge measurements are often made under extremely
dangerous field conditions. Actual flood measurements are
made only infrequently. An example of this is shown in
Figure 2 where the stage-discharge measurements contain an
observed flood that is more than twice the height of the next
highest stage and more than three times the next highest
observed discharge. Such situations occur frequently and are
generally overlooked when time series of discharges and
flood peaks are being analysed. In other cases, the observa-
tion of the flood does not have the same precision and accu-
racy as ‘normal’ measurements, and frequently, the flood
value is made using a different technology than the balance
of the stage-discharge methods. Potter and Walker (1981)
report that above a given threshold, an indirect measure-
ment of discharge is usually used to estimate flood dis-
charges, creating a discontinuous measurement error where
the errors are significantly greater than for the direct meas-
urements. This bias is particularly important with regard to
flood frequency analysis. In many cases, the rating curve is
extended beyond the actual measurements. Kuczera (1996)
proposed an incremental rating curve error model to address
rating-curve extension for floods frequency inference. Clarke
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Changing floods in future climates
Norrish Creek near Dewdney 08MH058
2.5
1.5
Stage (m)
0.5
0
0 20 40
Figure 2 Stage discharge relationship for Norrish Creek (BC, Canada) where the highest stage has greater than three times the next
highest discharge and more than twice the highest observed river stage.
(1999) described uncertainty in the estimation of mean
annual flood because of rating-curve indefinition. Whitfield
and Hendrata (2006) demonstrate the uncertainty of high
discharge where the error is in the range 30–100% from
rating curves.
Statistical analysis of floods is based on a number of
assumptions. Because floods are not normally distributed,
determining the nature of the parent distribution has been
approached both theoretically and pragmatically. If the
parent distribution was known, then the analysis of floods
would be more certain. Theoretically, the generalised
extreme value distribution (GEV), a family of continuous
probability distributions that combines the Gumbel,
Fréchet, and Weibull families, has general application to
floods. These distributions have three parameters (location,
scale, and shape) and are independent and identically dis-
tributed (iid). More common, and generally standard prac-
tice in engineering, is the Log Pearson Type III distribution.
Griffis and Stedinger (2007, 2009) and Stedinger and Griffis
(2008) called for an updating of Bulletin 17b to maintain
the statistical credibility and to provide better risk and
uncertainty assessments. Douglas and Vogel (2006) consid-
ered the probabilistic behaviour of floods of record. If
annual floods arise from a GEV, then floods of record arise
from a GEVmax because floods of record are more extreme
and cluster spatially at regional and national scales in the
United States.
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345
60 80 100 120 140
3
Q (m /s)
Another method of change detection considers the analy-
sis of the distribution parameters of the parent distribution.
If the parent distribution changes over time, then trends can
be determined for any or all of location, scale, and shape.
Strupczewski et al. (2001a) used maximum likelihood esti-
mation to determine trends in the first two moments of the
annual maximum series, while Strupczewski et al. (2001b)
used weighted least squares estimation to address trends in
the annual maximum series. Merz and Blöschl (2009) exam-
ined process controls on statistical flood moments in Austria
where flood run-off is more strongly controlled by catch-
ment moisture than by event precipitation. The hydroclima-
tology of catchments is strongly correlated with mean
annual flood and its variance.
Watershed attributes may be used to resolve or predict the
potential for floods. Bell and Om Kar (1969) assessed the
various roles of basin characteristics in determination of
hydrograph parameters; several of these parameters are
affected strongly by storm types and the durations and
intensities of rainfall. O’Connell et al. (2004) demonstrate
that the annual maximum flood frequency curve is affected
by basin characteristics, and the evapotranspiration and
rainfall regime (i.e. climate), particularly the role of soil
moisture. Waylen and Woo (1981) present a method for
predicting the probability distribution of annuals floods in
the Fraser River catchment based upon the Gumbel distri-
bution. Within regions, regression analysis is use to relate
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
346
physiographic and climatic variables to the properties of the
annual flood series. Gustard (1983) examined the regional
variability of soil characteristics for flood estimation; the
magnitude of events is controlled by the proportion of the
rainfall-generating run-off.
Drainage area is generally a strong determinant of
flood magnitude, plotting the long-term average annual
maximum against area, a standard evaluation tool. Herschy
(2002) produced a world envelope plotting maximum floods
against drainage area using the power law Q = 500A0.43 (m3/s
km2). Griffiths and McKerchar (2008) examined flood
records from catchments in New Zealand and showed that
flood peaks are related to basin area in New Zealand. Xiao
et al. (2009) demonstrate that flood peaks and floods
volumes are correlated and need to be described by multiple
variables.
Floods also demonstrate regional characteristics; such
characteristics could allow improved understanding of the
relationship of floods to basin characteristics and hence
enable generalisations at a larger scale. Regional approaches
can provide an improved statistical characterisation than
individual analyses (Bobée and Rasmussen, 1994). Pilon and
Adamowski (1992) approach regional flood frequency
analysis using l-moments; they demonstrate that there is
sufficient sampling error in L-skewness that a relationship
to basin characteristics cannot be determined and that a
regional GEV is better than single site analysis. Srinivas et al.
(2008) updated regionalisation approaches to combine self-
organising feature maps and fuzzy clustering, techniques
that find natural groups of watersheds with homogenous
hydrological responses. Saf (2009) developed a regional rela-
tionship between the magnitude of the peak flood and catch-
ment area; using a regional flood frequency analysis, they
could then apply to ungauged catchments. Kjeldsen and
Jones (2009) describe a formal statistical model for region
of influence method used in regional frequency analysis of
extreme floods to improve on existing methods. These issues
apply to all flood frequency analyses – how to define hydro-
logical similarity, the size of pooling groups, and calculation
of the pooled l-moment ratios. Regional approaches are par-
ticularly useful for estimating floods for ungauged sites and
particularly for future climates.
While regional properties are useful in extrapolation, they
present a dilemma for those seeking to determine changes
over time. If a spatial correlation among floods exists, it can
be considered to reduce sample size, or it can be viewed as a
correlate increasing confidence. Douglas et al. (2000) found
trends in floods occur in two thirds of the individual cases;
however, using a regional test, there was no evidence of
trends in flood flows in the United States. Vogel et al. (2001)
assess the frequency of record breaking floods in the United
States. For periods from 10 to 80 years, the annual flood
series behave as if serially independent; however, when
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
Journal of Flood Risk Management © 2012 The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
Whitfield
spatial correlation is ignored, the records are not serially
independent.
Because floods are generated by different processes, a
sampled population of floods may contain mixtures of types.
Woo and Waylen (1984) considered approaches where floods
are produced by two different mechanisms. Gingras and Ada-
mowski (1993) show that flood distributions in river of New
Brunswick can have multimodal or unimodal densities
because of different flood-generating mechanisms. Alila and
Mtiraoui (2002) discuss the implications of heterogeneous
flood frequency distributions on stream-discharge predic-
tion techniques. Mixtures of flood populations clearly do not
meet the homogeneity assumptions of many analysis tech-
niques. Flood mixtures can result from climate system fea-
tures, El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal
Oscillation (PDO), and also flood-generating processes,
snowmelt, rain, and rain-on-snow. Claps and Laio (2003)
showed that the shape of rainfall and run-off distributions
are indistinguishable for pluvial systems; however, where the
flood mechanism is melting snow, the basins show a marked
change in ‘shape’ compared with rainfall curves. Maas and
Macklin (2002) demonstrated 12 periods of increased flood-
ing in the past 150 years in a watershed on Crete, periods
correlated with the phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation
(NAO). In negative phases of the NAO, floods are more
common; during the past 40 years, the NAO index has been
increasing, and major flooding has declined. More robust
methods for dealing with such mixed populations of floods
are crucial, especially when considering future climates
where a change in flood-generating processes, such as from
snowmelt to rain-on-snow, or changes in the climate system,
such as NAO need to be assessed.
Flood frequency analysis has two basic approaches. The
first considers the ‘annual series’ where the time series is
formed by the annual maximum flow. The second is the
‘partial series’ or ‘peaks over threshold’ (POTs) where all
flood events above some threshold are considered. The
annual series has the expected property that floods in differ-
ent years are likely to be independent. The partial series is a
more complete sampling of flood events, particularly when
two or three events occur in a single year, but such events
may not be independent. The annual series may be best
applied to systems where single snowmelt floods predomi-
nate, while partial series is more practical when there are
multiple floods during the year. The POT method has
important complications that can be adequately addressed
in the analysis of an individual flood series but are more
difficult to apply to large numbers of series. Lang et al.
(1999) review over-threshold modelling and its complexity.
Rasmussen et al. (1994) document the advantages of the
POTs approach over the annual maximum flood approach;
they include objective criteria to determine appropriate
thresholds. Whitfield and Covic (1998) provided a method
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Changing floods in future climates
for testing the statistical independence of events within a
POT series. Cox et al. (2002) provide some new methods
dealing with extreme floods that are not in common use at
this time, such as a Bayesian pooling of information from
a range of sources. Despite the prevalence of annual
maximum flood analysis, its applicability to rainfall and
rain-on-snow systems is limited. In future climates with
warmer, wetter conditions, changes in flood generation
mechanisms from snowmelt to rain-on-snow or rainfall will
require appropriate analysis comparing frequencies of
similar type events and requiring new methods that combine
POTs methods with mixed population approaches.
Classical flood frequency analysis assumes that the statis-
tical process does not change over time or space, termed
stationarity. Flood protection systems have been designed
and operated based on the assumption of stationarity of
hydrological processes (Kundzewicz, 2002). If this assump-
tion is incorrect, the design procedures used to construct
existing and future infrastructure would require revision.
There is clear evidence that stationarity is not the case
(Gosnold et al., 2000) and that even modest changes in
climate can result in large changes in flood magnitude
(Knox, 1993). Strupczewski and Kaczmarek (2001) present a
nonstationary method of flood frequency analysis in a study
of trends in annual maximum flows in Polish rivers; they
report a general tendency of decreases in both the mean and
standard deviation of the annual peak series but not of
floods during summer. Cunderlik et al. (2007) describe an
alternative method for nonstationary flood frequency mod-
elling. Ouarda et al. (1999) determined that streamflow
series in Québec were nonstationary, likely as a result of
climate variations. Remillard et al. (2004) identified regions
where a seasonal flood approach would address stationarity;
they examined the seasonal characteristics of floods from
166 hydrometric stations in Canada, grouping series based
on flood-generating processes using ‘seasonal’ time periods.
Olsen (2006) evaluates several statistical methods of flood-
risk estimation that do not assume climate stationarity. The
assumption behind classical flood-risk analysis is that
climate is stationary. These approaches seek to reduce the
impact of nonstationarity on the analyses.
An alternative approach is to incorporate long-term per-
sistence, frequently referred to as the Hurst phenomena
(Koutsoyiannis, 2003), where annual maxima are strongly
dependent. From the classic sense, the existence of long-term
memory reduces the number of independent observations.
Burn and Goel (2000, 2001) examined the 117-year flood
series of the Red River at Winnipeg and demonstrated that
long-term persistence exists, and effectively, there is only 45
years of independent data. From the other perspective, long-
term persistence has been associated with climate variations.
Recently, Charpentier and Sibai (2009) considered combin-
ing the Gumbel (1941) iid approach and Hurst long-term
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347
memory in flood analysis. These approaches seek to directly
incorporate long-term persistence in the analysis.
Other approaches to flood frequency analysis under con-
sideration include Bayesian and nonparametric methods.
Seidou et al. (2006) combined local and regional informa-
tion in a Bayesian flood frequency analysis. Ribatet et al.
(2007) provide a regional Bayesian POT flood frequency
model. Adamowski (1985) described a nonparametric
method for flood frequency analysis that does not make
assumptions about how floods are distributed. Adamowski
(1989) examined the relationship of flood magnitude to fre-
quency of occurrence for both parametric and nonparamet-
ric methods. Nonparametric methods are accurate, uniform,
and particularly suitable for multimodal data, including
more accurate estimates of the tail of a distribution. The
approaches seek to provide robust alternatives to the
methods in common use.
In summary, there are a considerable number of issues
under active consideration in the hydrological community
that have direct relevance to understanding changes in
floods. First, floods are difficult to measure, and often, these
extremes have much greater and different measurement
errors than the majority of streamflow data. Second, while
practical choices have been made to support engineering
practice, we do not actually know the parent statistical dis-
tribution of floods. Third, flood frequency analysis involves
many assumptions, assumptions that might not hold in a
future climate. In future, many aspects of floods in addition
to magnitude and return period might change statistical
distribution, mixed populations of flood types, long-term
persistence, stationarity, land use, and regional characteris-
tics. Finally, when considering future floods, we should
analyse annual series or points over threshold series. Fre-
quently, the literature that considers the climate change
effects on floods does not consider the impacts that these
issues might have on their results.
Modelling issues
Because models of floods in future climate rely on the
present capability and limitations of flood models, the
results from such models need to be considered with care.
Modelling present floods is done using a variety of either
conceptually or physically based models. Wheater (2002)
reviewed the present capability of flood modelling and iden-
tified needed improvements: appropriate representation of
spatial distribution of precipitation, simulation of ungauged
catchments, land-use and land-management effects, urban
flooding, parameterisations of in-channel and flood plain
flows, and decision support modelling framework. Beven
(1993) considered the impact of a warmer, wetter Britain,
generally suggesting an increase in the frequency and mag-
nitude of flooding. While it may be difficult to separate the
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
348 Whitfield

500 40
35
400
30
25
Q (m3/s)

Q (m3/s)
300
20
200 15
10
100
5
1973-1993 2013-2033 2043-2083 2073-2093 1973-1993 2013-2033 2043-2083 2073-2093
0 0
Englishman (CGCM2b – portial series) Kanaka (CGCM2b – portial series)

30 1800

25 1500

20 1200
Q (m3/s)

Q (m3/s)
15 900

10 600

5 300
1873-1983 2013-2033 2043-2063 2073-2083 1873-1983 2013-2033 2043-2063 2073-2083
0 0
Roberts (CGCM2b – portial series) San Juan (CGCM2b – portial series)
Figure 3 Modelled future floods using IHACRES, for the 10 year (blue), 100-year (green), and 200-year (gold) partial duration series [all
events greater than Q05 in modelled present, using Coupled Global Climate Model 2 (CGCM2) output for scenario B].

effects of changing climate from those of land-use change,
Beven (1993) provide guidance for reducing uncertainty
through research that improved data collection and model
improvements to reduce levels of predictive uncertainty.
Allamano et al. (2006) modelled a four similar rainfall-
driven watersheds using the conceptual model IHACRES and
downscaled climate from Coupled Global Climate Model 2.
Using models well calibrated to present conditions, projec-
tions for floods in future climates produce contrary results
(Figure 3); models for two watersheds produce increasing
floods in future climates and two decreasing floods, the
combine effect of equifinality and extrapolation outside the
observed range, and the assumption that the model param-
eters will remain constant. It is frequently argued that more
physically based models have a greater potential for accuracy
when used for conditions beyond the range of conditions
used during calibration, as they are focused on physical proc-
esses. Younger et al. (2009) examined the effects of spatial
variability of rainfall within hydrological modelling; higher
rainfall in low-lying or high areas of the catchment changed
both event peaks and stream baseflow. Such conceptual
models have limited parameters and rely on statistical fitting
to map inputs onto outputs. Most of the conceptual models
in use perform well in representing current conditions.
However, for many of the models in use, multiple parameter
settings produce equally valid outputs. Blazkova and Beven
(2009) used a limit of acceptability approach to model evalu-
ation and uncertainty estimation with respect to flood fre-
quency. Results show that individual model realisations,
using the same parameter values, for similar lengths of simu-
lation can be very significant in terms of acceptability. Wang
et al. (2005) used output from a regional model driven by
ECHAM and ERA40 to drive HBV model of the Suir River in
Ireland, reproducing present day streamflows relatively well
but overpredicting flooding.
The spatial resolution of models can affect model outputs.
Booij (2003, 2005) assessed the impact of different spatial
model resolution on estimates of climate change effects on
river flooding. Using HBV with three spatial resolutions,
results became ‘better’ with increasing model resolution but
overestimated mean discharge and underestimated flood
peaks. The underestimation of peaks is attributed to limits
to observed precipitation. There is large uncertainty with
respect to flooding in future climates (~40%) that is much
greater than the climate uncertainty (less than 10%).
Physically based models rely on the physics of hydro-
logical processes and parameterisations to accommodate
multiple scales. Valeo and Rasmussen (2000) explored the
relationship between topography and contributing area to
flood frequency; for 10-year return periods, all topographi-
cal distributions produced peak flows similar in magni-
tude, while at higher return periods, the flows for the four

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Changing floods in future climates
topographies were distinctly different. Liu et al. (2008) used
a physically based distributed hydrological model for flood
forecasting in catchments with different conditions; the
model was shown to perform well for flood simulation and
was also expected to work well for ungauged basins.
Hydrological models have large uncertainties; they are
designed for stationary conditions, and split sample model-
ling is not possible. Conceptual models and physical models
both present challenges when applied to future conditions.
Beven (1993) considered the impact of a warmer wetter on
flooding in Britain, generally suggesting an increase in the
frequency and magnitude of flooding. While it may be dif-
ficult to separate the effects of changing climate from those
of land-use change, Beven (1993) provide guidance for
reducing uncertainty through research that improved data
collection and model improvements to reduce levels of
predictive uncertainty. The testing methods for fitness for
purpose need to be more widely implemented.
Models and statistical analyses of future climates generally
involve obtaining estimates outside the existing range of
observed variables. For conceptual models and statistics
based upon real data, this can present difficulties, as the
‘known’ behaviour is based upon those observations. Seibert
(2003) assessed the reliability of conceptual model predic-
tions outside calibration conditions. While predictions of
probabilities and magnitudes of extreme events are essential,
conceptual models should not be used to extrapolate outside
of the calibration range. Using HBV for four catchments and
split-sampling between low-flow and high-flow periods,
Seibert (2003) applied a model to conditions different from
those observed during calibration. This clearly demon-
strated that results could be inaccurate, and even improved
calibration procedures might not provide more accurate
flood estimates. Results from such studies should be inter-
preted with care.
Similar effects can be demonstrated for other aspects of
hydrological modelling, particularly scaling. Booij (2003)
examined appropriate scales for river basin modelling, par-
ticularly for floods. Identifying appropriate scales improves
model construction and can also be used to address issues
of observation network scales. In many climatic areas of
Canada where floods are generated from snowmelt and rain-
on-snow events, simple scaling properties of flood flows are
appropriate (Yue and Gan, 2009). However, in areas where
snowmelt is not involved, simple scaling is inappropriate.
Blöschl et al. (2007) consider the scales at which climate
variability and land cover changes affect flooding. Concep-
tually, land-use effects are greatest at small spatial scales,
while climate effects remain relatively constant.
The grand challenge is that floods are an extreme, and
extremes are not well reproduced in GCMs. Currently, we do
not know how to best use the GCMs ensembles, and because
not all GCMs are not independent, selecting members is
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problematic. More typically, we use a single GCM for a single
scenario downscaled (statistically or dynamically) to a single
pseudo-weather record to drive a single hydrological model
using a single set of model parameters to make projections
for a future time period, assuming that all the attributes of
the modelling chain will remain constant. In hydrology, this
usually involved large changes in scales. While GCMs
perform well with many atmospheric components, they do
not always reproduce climate system features, such as ENSO,
PDO, and NAO, features that are important in hydrology.
Detecting changes in flood frequency
and magnitude in the recent past
This section reviews publications that considered floods that
have occurred in the observational record. Reports of recent
flooding are frequently interpreted as evidence of a trend
towards more extreme weather. The physical processes that
generate floods are varied and complex (Table 1). In a
warmer atmosphere, it is likely that precipitation will
increase and that the pattern and tracks of storms will also
change, changing the potential for excess rainfall to become
more common in many areas of the globe. In warmer
climate changes to flood-generating processes that involve
frozen water, rain-on-snow floods, snowmelt, and ice jams
will change at the local scale as processes shift poleward and
to higher elevations. These processes will also shift in time at
the local level with snowmelt run-off shifting to earlier in the
year. At the local scale, landscape and land use play an impor-
tant role. For example, Schiermeier (2003) reported that
some observers to the 2003 flooding in the Elbe basin sug-
gested that the flooding was evidence of such a trend.
However, a comprehensive analysis indicated that there was
no evidence of this being the case; the research showed no
upward trend in frequency of summertime flooding. In the
same area, winter flooding frequency has decreased in the
past century. Findings from such studies need to be inter-
preted with caution; ‘flooding’ should be better linked to the
generating mechanisms and better separated from the
damages that occur from increased exposure, such as con-
tinued building in the floodplain.
Meteorological floods
Intense rainfall in urban areas frequently results in local
flooding, the result of excess precipitation, and insufficient
drainage or urban planning. It is estimated, using regional
frequency analysis, that the magnitude of extreme rainfall
has increased twofold over parts of the UK since the 1960s
(Fowler and Kilsby, 2003). Smith et al. (2002) describe the
regional hydrology of extreme floods in urbanising areas.
While five of the largest floods had occurred in the past
decade, there were several factors responsible: the roles of
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space-time variability of rainfall, antecedent soil moisture,
expansion of impervious area, and the alteration of drainage
patterns. Because floods have different generating mecha-
nisms, and a range of attributes, it is useful to consider them
separately. In the following sections, observed changes in
generating mechanisms and attributes that are also likely to
change in future climate are considered, including the role of
landscape and land use. To best understand floods in future
climates, we need to perform careful analysis of basin char-
acteristics, land use, drainage, and urbanisation, if the effects
of changing climate are to be detected, accurately measured,
and correctly interpreted and attributed.
Observed changes in precipitation involve more than just
amounts and should also consider intensity, storm fre-
quency, and storm tracks. Increased intensity and increased
frequency of heavy rainfall events will result in an increased
potential for excess precipitation. The IPPC describes
increases in precipitation amount quite thoroughly at the
global scale. Local-scale changes in precipitation are not
adequately resolved in GCMs but can result in changed
potential for flooding.
Changes in precipitation at the local scale will be impor-
tant for understanding how changes in precipitation in
future might affect flooding. Huff (1995) investigated major
hydrometeorological factors affecting flood-producing rain-
storms in urban- and small-area basins in the Chicago area,
describing the enhancement of urban-induced precipitation
and an upward trend in heavy rainfall events. Smith et al.
(2000) described catastrophic rainfall and flooding in Texas.
They show that different storm structure, evolution, and
motion can maximise flood peaks in a drainage basin. Yin
(2005) demonstrated a poleward shift in storm tracks and
expansion of baroclinic regions in midlatitudes. A poleward
shift in storm tracks in future climates have potential impacts
on flooding in midlatitudes. More generally, changes in
storm tracks could affect the frequency and magnitude of
heavy precipitation events at the local scale. Bosilovich et al.
(2003) describe the Mississippi flooding of 1993, linking
the flooding with local precipitation recycling and, hence, the
magnitude of flooding to the wet state of the basin. Where the
wetness of a basin is high, there is increased potential for
supplying water to local convective systems. Each of these
selected studies demonstrates a local effect that has potential
to change in future. Storm structure and motion, storm
tracks and storm series patterns, local recycling of moisture
in convective cells, and urban inducement are examples of
more local-scale precipitation processes that are expected to
change in future climates.
Also likely to change in future climates are large-scale
climate system features, such as El Niño, NAO, and PDO. In a
warmer climate with increased atmospheric flux of water in
the frequency and magnitude of these could change. Because
these features have strong effects on local climate, their role in
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
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flooding is of interest. Webb and Betancourt (1992) diag-
nosed long-term variations of the annual flood series of the
Santa Cruz River in Tucson, Arizona, to find that ENSO
status modulates the return intervals of floods of all sizes.
They demonstrate that the probability that an annual flood
will rank in the upper third of the historical annual flood
series is enhanced in the US Northwest (in many cases,
amounting to twice the normal probabilities) and dimin-
ished in the US Southwest. In the eastern United States,
probabilities of large annual floods consistently reflect higher
probabilities of the upper third of annual floods in the rivers
along the Appalachians, Great Lakes, and north central states
with lower probabilities in many rivers of the Northern Mis-
sissippi basin. Duckstein et al. (1993) provides a case study of
the linkage between the occurrence of atmospheric circula-
tion patterns and floods in Arizona for a 40-year period,
linking two circulation pattern frequencies to floods that
occur year round and another two only to winter floods.
Winter floods are linked to circulation patterns, but summer
floods generated from convective activity are not. They also
demonstrated the usefulness of climate indices in studying
the nonstationarities of circulation patterns. Jain and Lall
(2000) showed that PDO and ENSO affected timing and
magnitude of floods in Utah. Jain and Lall (2001) reported
that nonstationarities of floods associated with anthropo-
genic climate change and with the low-frequency climate
states are not well understood. Kiem et al. (2002) showed the
strong effect of climate variability (ENSO and PDO) in flood
risk. Wu and Gough (2007) assessed the teleconnection
between floods in the Yangtze and El Niño events. They
demonstrate that the main cycle of flood variations is much
longer than the El Niño cycles; generally, this delays floods by
1 year and that the shorter the interval between events, the
sooner the next flood occurs. Many other correlative studies
also show associations between large-scale climate features,
synoptic patterns, mesoscale meteorology, and flooding. In
future climates, these large-scale features are expected to
change; hence, changes in circulation patterns affecting flood
events are likely to also occur. For example, in areas where
flooding is related to El Niño, changes in the frequency of El
Niño will affect the frequency of flooding. However, there
needs to be improved predictability of these effects because
much of the existing evidence is associative rather than
mechanistic. Rainfall-generated floods in the north, and
west, of the UK were correlated with the NAO (Hannaford
and Marsh, 2008). Cunderlik and Ouarda (2009) demon-
strated that snowmelt floods in Canada were earlier and
decreasing in magnitude in 20% of the cases studied; fall
flood event were, however, increasing in magnitude.
Hydrological floods
The magnitude of floods is an important attribute to con-
sider as it reflects the maximum height the water achieves. In
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some cases, this is also the maximum discharge but not when
the flood is the product of an ice jam or other temporary
blockage of the stream. Goulding et al. (2009) showed trends
in several factors affecting ice-jam flooding, namely a longer
prebreak-up melt interval, a lower peak discharge and rate of
rise in discharge, and a lower ice thickness. Rainfall intensity,
rainfall duration, storm movement, permeability, and ante-
cedent moisture each have predictable effects on flood
hydrographs (Roberts and Klingeman, 1970). Rainfall run-
off processes require distinction between high-intensity
local-scale events and long-lasting large-scale events cover-
ing large areas, and the complex nonlinear and space-time
variable nature of precipitation systems (Bronstert, 1995).
Gupta et al. (2002) described the linkage the convective
instability of subtropical air masses that can lead to rapid
development of intense thunderstorms and severe flooding,
and generation of floods. Gupta (2004) showed that aggre-
gated behaviour of peak flows exhibits statistical scale invari-
ance; the physical processes governing floods in river basins
are highly variable, suggesting a large number of model
parameters, most of which cannot be measured.
Bronstert (1995) assessed river flooding in Germany, par-
ticularly the influence of climate change. In Germany,
climate change is mainly affecting meteorological conditions
and, to a lesser extent, the amount of moisture in the water-
shed. Mansell (1997) assessed the general increase in river
flows and floods in four Scottish catchments for a 30-year-
period, where the increase in flooding has been greater than
the increase in precipitation during the same period. He
proposed that the difference is due to changes in the distri-
bution and pattern of rainfall. Sefton and Boorman (1997)
investigated regional climate change impacts on UK stream-
flows that resulted in increased flooding in the north and
west of the UK. In the UK, the intensity of rainfall has
increased significantly in the past 40 years (Osborn and
Hulme, 2002). Robson (2002) assessed local and national
flood series in the UK in relation to climate variability. In the
past 30–50 years, there has been a trend towards more pro-
tracted high flows that could be attributed to climate vari-
ability; however, there is no statistical evidence of long-term
trends in flooding over the past 80–120 years. Tu et al. (2004)
studied changes in the flood regime of the Meuse River
(Belgium) under climate variability. Five of the seven largest
floods in the Meuse within the period 1911–2003 occurred
in the most recent decade. They emphasised the need to
separate the effects of land-use change from climate change.
Hannaford and Marsh (2008) tested for trends in flood mag-
nitude and frequency, and duration showing significant
positive trends over the 30–40 years prior to 2003 in all
indicators in upland maritime-influenced catchments in the
north and west of the UK. Villarini et al. (2009) assessed
change in annual flood peaks of 50 rivers in the United States
and found profound changes that involve changes in land
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351
use and flow regulation in addition to climate; unfortu-
nately, their analysis did not consider these effects separately.
Petrow and Merz (2009) examined trends in flood magni-
tude, frequency, and seasonality for the period between 1951
and 2002. Several recent destructive floods led to an impres-
sion of increased frequency and magnitude of floods. There
were significant flood trends at 10% significance level;
increasing flood trends predominate, and decreasing flood
trends are rare and not field significant. Basins with signifi-
cant trends are spatially and seasonally coherent in different
areas of Germany, suggesting that the changes are climate
driven.
Douglas et al. (2000) found no evidence of trends in
flood flows in the United States. There was no evidence of
increased extreme river floods in Central Europe nor was
there an upward trend in frequency of summertime flooding
(Mudelsee et al., 2003). Winter flooding frequency has
decreased in the past century. Kundzewicz et al. (2005)
found increases (in 27 locations) and decreases (in 31 loca-
tions), and no trend in the remaining 137 of the 195 catch-
ments they examined worldwide. Findings from such studies
need to be interpreted with caution; the absence of an
upward trend in flood magnitude or frequency is not neces-
sarily reassuring. Wilby et al. (2008) reviewed potential effect
of climate change on river flooding emphasising the need to
understand flood-generating mechanisms.
These seemingly diametrically opposed results are typical
of such analyses. Different authors considering different
periods of records from different rivers with different gen-
erating mechanisms using different statistical techniques
simply get different results. Most of the studies showing
increased frequency of flooding are areas where rainfall is the
principal generating mechanism; studies where trends are
not being consistently detected generally include a broader
variety of flood-generating mechanisms.
It is also of interest to consider floods from a much longer
timescale than the instrumental record. Such studies provide
a frame of reference for the observational records and par-
ticularly for floods in relation to long-term climate variations.
Knox (1993) examined a 7000-year record for the Mississippi
River that shows a high sensitivity of flood to changes in
climate. During warmer, drier periods, the largest floods were
extremely rare and about the size of today’s 50-year event,
while in a cooler, wetter periods, they were the size of today’s
500-year events; these differences with variations of 1–2 °C
and <20% precipitation change. Fraedrich et al. (1997) exam-
ined the historical record of the Nile River showing eight
almost synchronous abrupt changes in Nile flood levels, and
many are associated with 35- to 45-year periods of persistent
high or low floods. They relate these periods to variations in
midlatitude (sea surface temperatures, similar to the NAO).
Ely (1997) examined paleofloods in Arizona and Utah where
winter storms and tropical cyclones are linked to largest
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
352
events, and a relationship to El Niño over 3000 years is
evident. Knox (2000) determined from flood chronologies
from several regions that more frequent occurrence of large
and extreme floods is associated with periods of rapid climate
change. Since the 1950s, floods have been sometimes attrib-
uted to land-use change, while climate change is an active
factor (Knox, 2000). The geomorphic record, tree ring analy-
sis, or diatom studies can reveal evidence of the occurrence
and magnitude of past extreme floods (St. George and
Nielsen, 2002). Further, they suggest that research should
develop paleoflood records for a sample of rivers in different
climatic regimes that extend significantly beyond measured
and historical floods records. Such records would begin to
address the issue of how the frequency of high-magnitude
flood events responds to climate variations. Innovative,
multidisciplinary research approaches will have to be utilised
in order to obtain these reconstructions in some geomorphic
settings and also tie in with the use of current climate condi-
tions and numerical weather prediction models.
The detection of anthropogenically forced changes in
flooding is difficult because of the substantial natural vari-
ability and the dependence of streamflow trends on flood
typology. Milly et al. (2002) detected an upward trend in the
global frequency of ‘great floods’ (100-year floods on river
basins larger than 200 000 km2). This statistically significant
positive trend in risk of great floods is consistent with results
from climate models and suggests that the trend will con-
tinue. Milly et al. (2005) argue that the global pattern of 20th
century global trends in mean annual streamflow was par-
tially controlled by forced climate change, although trends in
any single region could be explained by internal variability.
While studies of flood frequency and magnitude domi-
nate much flood research, changes in climate, particularly
temperature, would also affect the seasonal pattern of floods.
Harvey (1971) described the differences between summer
and winter floods on a clay catchment in the UK where
major floods result from longer and more complex rain
periods. Summer events are generally smaller, as run-off is
being generated from a portion of the catchment; in winter,
there tends to be more widespread precipitation, higher soil
moistures, and difference in crop cover. Black and Werritty
(1997) examined the seasonality of flooding in North
Britain; while there is considerable spatial variation in sea-
sonal flooding, floods occur predominantly (78%) in winter.
These patterns are explained by seasonality of storm rainfall,
soil moisture deficits, catchment size, and lake storage. Sui
and Koehler (2001) examined the space-time variability of
precipitation and snow in flood generation where elevation
plays a major determining role above 400 m. Zhang et al.
(2001b) examined floods on the Great Plains of Eastern
Nebraska. This area has a high frequency of organised thun-
derstorm systems that result in a sharp seasonal peak in
flooding in late June. In more snow-dominated mountain-
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
Journal of Flood Risk Management © 2012 The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
Whitfield
ous areas, in Canada, Leith and Whitfield (1998), Whitfield
and Cannon (2000), and Rood et al. (2008) demonstrated
that changes in seasonal hydrology, particularly earlier
timing of spring and peak flows that constitute the annual
flood. Changes in the timing of floods are expected to be
explained by changes in the generating process; for example,
in warmer climates, snowmelt peaks are expected to occur
earlier in the year.
While changes in climate are going to affect floods,
changes in landscape and land use must not be discounted. A
variety of basin attributes affect the flood response of a basin
(Srinivas et al., 2008) include the physiographical character-
istics, such as drainage area, stream length, slope, basin
storage, and reservoirs; soil covers characteristics such as
infiltration potential and run-off coefficients, land-use
patterns, drainage characteristics, geographical location
(latitude, longitude, and elevation), meteorological charac-
teristics such as storm tracks and seasonality of the occur-
rence of floods, and the geological features of the basin.
Changes to land use have been widely shown to alter floods.
Hewlett and Doss (1984) using a paired watershed experi-
ment assessed the effects of clear cutting and regeneration of
pine forests; small storm flows on dry soils are greatly
increased (by 50% or more), but larger annual floods on wet
soils only increased by 10–15%. Cazorzi and Dalla Fontana
(1994) provide a case study of land-use change increasing
flood hazard. Changnon and Demissie (1996) considered
detecting changes in streamflow, including floods, from
climate change that are complicated by changes in land use,
drainage, and water use. They compared annual mean flows
and peak flows in Midwestern basins during the period
1940–1990. All four basins experienced an upward trend in
precipitation and annual mean flows. Human produced
changes in rural basins account for 2/3 of the fluctuations in
mean flows and precipitation of the balance. Most of the
change (85%) in peak flows was attributable to changes in
drainage in these rural basins. In urban basins, where one
urban area doubled during the period, changes in precipita-
tion accounted for 69% of the upward trends in the heavily
urbanised basin, and 37% is the other. Increases in precipi-
tation during the study period resulted in increased stream-
flows, but the magnitude was masked by changes in land use.
Smith et al. (2000) described catastrophic rainfall and flood-
ing in Texas where the storm properties are linked to the
basin characteristics. Niehoff et al. (2002) examined the
impacts of changes in land use on storm-run-off generation
using different land-use scenarios. The influence of land-use
conditions is dependent upon the rainfall event characteris-
tics and the spatial scale; it is more relevant for high-intensity
convective events in contrast with low-intensity long-lasting
advective storms. However, this scale is of minor relevance in
large river basins. Savary et al. (2009) assessed the effects of
changes in land cover on run-off using hydrological models
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Changing floods in future climates
and remote sensing. Simulations show strong correlations
between land-cover changes and basin discharges; land cover
is a governing factor of watershed hydrology.
Direct actions to alter flood risks also have received
widespread attention. Gergel et al. (2002) examined the eco-
logical consequence of human-altered floods along the
Wisconsin River, where levees have the greatest effects on the
highest magnitude flood events. Tarhule (2005) examined
damaging rainfall and flooding in the Sahel and area more
often noted for drought; between 1970 and 2000, newspa-
pers report 79 damaging rainfall and flood events driven by
land-use patterns. Wolski and Murray-Hudson (2008) inves-
tigated the permanent and transient changes in flood distri-
butions in Okavango Delta, where flooding is very variable;
tectonic activity, sedimentation, vegetation changes, and
human activities all influence the spatial distribution of
floodwaters. Some of the observed changes are transient as a
result of the nonlinear system and variation in the inputs.
Ferrari et al. (2009) showed the land-use effect of surface
mining enhancement of floods to be linear. While nonsta-
tionarities of floods from land-use changes are well known,
those associated with anthropogenic climate change and
with the low-frequency climate states are not (Jain and Lall,
2001). The effects of changes in land-use and drainage pat-
terns frequently have a stronger effect than those of climate.
Flood damage potential is not solely connected to climate
(Bronstert, 1995) because damage potential is predominated
by land-use and risk exposure.
There is a considerable and growing body of literature
reporting an increase in flood magnitude, frequency, or
damages. These have been shown to result from changes in
land use, risk exposure, and in climate. Many articles do not
consider all the forces of changes in floods and result in a
weak attribution.
Projections of future floods
Modelling floods in future climate usually involves three
steps: (1) use of GCMs to provide future climate scenarios,
(2) use of downscaling techniques [regional climate models
(RCMs)/statistical downscaling/weather generators] to shift
GCM output to a scale to that compatible with hydrological
models, and (3) use of hydrological models to simulate
hydrological response. In essence, this process seeks to
extrapolate from the global scale to the local scale (Figure 4).
Reviewing this process, Xu et al. (2005) suggest that while
much progress has been made, large uncertainties remain.
These uncertainties exist in a number of problem areas. First,
the capacity of GCMs to reproduce the current climate is
limited. Second, there are uncertainties with downscaling
either by statistical methods, RCM (dynamic downscaling),
or weather generators. Third; different hydrological models
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353
Figure 4 Uncertainties of climate change science. Topics in the
upper left hand corner have high confidence and global scales,
whereas changes in flooding are generally a local hydrological
impact. GHG, green house gases.
or with different model parameter sets can give different
values of streamflow for the same set of inputs.
Meteorological floods
Before describing these three in more detail, it is necessary to
provide some additional background. The outputs of this
process are not predictions, rather they are projections. Pro-
jections are based largely upon scenarios that are used in
climate change science. Scenarios are coherent, internally
consistent, and plausible descriptions of a possible future
state of the world (Parry, 2002). All scenarios are equally
likely and are useful in that they reflect the potential range of
future climate change. In particular, scenarios provide a basis
for comparison between the outputs of various modelling
systems, allowing us to compare like to like within and
between studies. Dankers and Feyen (2009) used different
emissions scenarios with a single hydrological model and
found very different and even opposite changes in the flood
hazard.
At present, there is a growing literature of case studies
estimating future flooding potential; however, many of them
do not address the uncertainties of the modelling process.
GCMs are the principle method for modelling future
climates. GCMs are mathematical models of the general cir-
culation of the atmosphere and the ocean on a rotating
sphere. Each of these models uses differential equations and
parameterisations to model physical processes in a three-
dimensional grid. GCMs differ in the size and depth of the
grid and in the physical processes they model or parameter-
ise. Parameterisations are used to ‘capture’ processes that
take place at subgrid scales. In the following, we shall restrict
the discussion to only aspects related to flooding. While
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
354
GCMs are commonly used tool for projecting future cli-
mates, there is a caution. Koutsoyiannis et al. (2008) argue
that geographically distributed predictions of future climates
from GCMs are widely used without assessing their reliabil-
ity. They compare the outputs from various models with
observations from eight stations with temperature and pre-
cipitation records greater than 100 years in length. The
results of Koutsoyiannis et al. (2008) show the models
perform poorly even at the scale of climatic norms (30
years). Thus, at a local-scale model, projections cannot be
credible, and the argument that they perform well at larger
scales cannot be supported (Koutsoyiannis et al., 2008).
To enable local impact studies, coarse GCM model output
is downscaled using RCMs, statistical downscaling, or
weather generators. Each of these methods is widely used.
RCMs are also used as dynamic downscaling. RCMs use the
GCM output as boundary conditions and operate much like
a GCM but as much higher spatial resolution (~45 km) so
that fewer parameterisations are required. Statistical down-
scaling uses methods to map GCM model projections onto
past observations; these methods range from the naïve
(linear regression) to the very sophisticated. At their sim-
plest, weather generators take the difference in temperature
or precipitation from a future period and the present, and
apply that ‘delta’ to existing weather. This produces weather
for future that looks like the present patterns but with tem-
peratures and precipitation that resemble that projected by
the GCM. Weather generators are generally the simplest to
apply to hydrological modelling but are falling out of favour
because they generally do not account for changes in weather
patterns and more sophisticated methods are becoming
more accessible.
Because increased precipitation is a key process in most
floods, it has been examined widely. Kothavala (1997)
assessed extreme precipitation events and the applicability of
GCMs to studying rainfall driven floods. In a warmer
climate, Kothavala (1997) expected an increase in the fre-
quency of heavy precipitation events; however, the number
of rain days decreased, but the intensity increased. Kothavala
(1997) suggests that increased instances of wet spells will
result in increased flooding. Abbs (1999) used GCMS to
evaluate the assumptions of the simple two parameter model
used for PMP. These assumptions are (1) that precipitation is
linear with precipitable water, (2) precipitation efficiency
does not change as the moisture available increases, and (3)
terrain modulates the distribution of precipitation but not
the synoptic-scale dynamics. Increases in moisture availabil-
ity result in earlier heavier rainfalls that last longer and are
more continuous. As more moisture becomes available, the
spatial distribution changes, but the precipitation efficiency
does not. The effect of terrain needs to be considered.
Despite these deficiencies, improved numerical modelling of
extreme rainfall events is an important approach.
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
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Whitfield
Whetton et al. (1993) examined the implications of
climate change on floods in Australia. Their simulations
of using a doubled atmospheric CO2 increased frequency of
high-intensity rainfall events that would be expected to lead
to increased flooding. They discuss the many difficulties
inherent in their quantitative assessment. Visser et al. (2000)
indentified key sources of uncertainty in climate change pro-
jections suggesting that higher emissions of green house
gasses leads to more uncertainty because the key source of
uncertainty in GCMs is radiative forcing. Muzik (2002)
reported that rainfall-driven floods in alpine areas in the
Canadian Rockies would increase in scenarios that have
increases in rainfall and its variability. In a multimodel
analysis, Palmer and Räisänen (2002) projected a consider-
able increase in the risk of a very wet winter over much of
central and Northern Europe attributed to an increase in
intense precipitation associated with midlatitude storms.
The probability of total boreal winter precipitation exceed-
ing two standard deviations above normal was projected to
increase considerably (five to sevenfold) for a CO2-doubling
over large areas of Europe, with likely increased winter flood
hazard. Palmer and Räisänen (2002) also projected an
increase in the risk of a very wet monsoon season in Asia.
Changes in extreme precipitation for three scenarios and the
spatial patterns of changes in rainfall intensity between
1980–1999 and 2080–2099 are showed by the IPCC (2007).
Large changes in precipitation intensity accompany all the
scenarios with those associated with higher greenhouse gas
concentrations being greater than those with lower emis-
sions. The modelled increases in precipitation intensity are
not spatially uniform; the largest increases in intensity are in
higher latitudes and also in those present wet areas. Chris-
tensen and Christensen (2003) examined future summer-
time flooding in Europe and found that despite a general
trend to drier summer conditions, episodes of severe flood-
ing will become more frequent because of extreme precipi-
tation. Mareuil et al. (2007) modelled how climate changes
might affect the frequency and severity of floods in the Châ-
teauguay River in Québec using output from three GCMs
with the B2 scenario to drive a stochastic weather generator.
While they show a reduction in the magnitude of floods in
future, large differences exist between the results obtained
with different GCMs. They recommend that physically based
hydrological models would reduce the uncertainties of
similar studies.
Hydrological floods
Milly et al. (2002) report that for 15 out of 16 large
(>200 000 km2) basins worldwide, the present 100-year peak
volumes of monthly river flow are projected to be exceeded
more frequently for a future with CO2-quadrupling. In some
areas, what is given as a 100-year flood now (in the control
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Changing floods in future climates
run) is projected to occur much more frequently, even every
2–5 years, albeit with a large uncertainty in these projections.
In many temperate regions, the contribution of snowmelt to
spring floods is likely to decline (Whitfield and Cannon,
2000; Zhang et al., 2001a). Warming-induced reduction of
firn cover on glaciers causes enhanced and immediate run-
off of melt water and can lead to flooding of glacial-fed
rivers. Mirza (2002) reports that global warming is likely to
have significant effects of the hydrology of the Bangladesh
and will lead to more serious floods in the region. Mirza
et al. (2003) examined future climate changes impacts on the
magnitude, depth, and extent of flooding in Bangladesh
using four GCMs and the MIKE11-GIS hydrodynamic
model. Changes in these flood characteristics differ consid-
erably between the four GCMs. Changes in the peak dis-
charge of the Ganges are expected to be higher than the
Brahmaputra and the Meghna. Greater changes in inunda-
tion are expected with lower temperature increases than at
higher temperature increases; reduction of hazard requires
strengthened flood management policies and adaptation
measures (Mirza et al., 2003).
Sefton and Boorman (1997) modelled rainfall-run-off
processes in future climates using a unit-run-off conceptual
model calibrated against historical data from 39 catchments.
Results show increased flooding in the north and west of
England. There is a degree of uncertainty in estimates of
future changes in flood frequency across the UK. Uhlen-
brook et al. (1999) examined the uncertainties of a repre-
sentative model structure; this study of equifinality in terms
of floods showed that the 0.01/year flood ranged in magni-
tude from 40–60 mm/day. Cameron et al. (2000) used TOP-
MODEL and a generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation
approach; while scenarios have only a small effect on likeli-
hood weighted flood frequency uncertainty bounds, the risk
of a given discharge is changed. They suggest that there is a
need to explicitly deal with uncertainty in modelling frame-
work. Roy et al. (2001) examined the impact of climate
change on seasonal floods in the Châteauguay River in
Quebec. They used CGCM1 and a coupled hydrology-
hydraulics model of the basin. The results show increased in
maximum discharge of up to 250% and increase water levels
beyond current flood levels. Loukas et al. (2000, 2002) mod-
elled potential climate change impacts on flood-producing
mechanisms in two watersheds, one in the interior and the
other on the coast of British Columbia. While both will be
wetter and warmer in future climates, coastal flooding will
increase because of rainfall events and winter rain-on-snow
events, in the interior, floods will be produced by spring rain
and snowmelt events. Coastal floods will increase in fre-
quency and magnitude, while in the interior, both will
decrease. Nicholls et al. (1999) and Mokrech et al. (2008)
both demonstrate large losses of coastal areas to sea level rise
and an accompanying risk of flooding from storm surge and
J Flood Risk Management 5 (2012) 336–365
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355
extreme rainfall. With dense populations along such coastal
areas around the globe, Kirshen et al. (2008) demonstrated
that coastal flooding would increase; they show changes in
return period of the 100-year event for high emission
becoming a 30-year event by midcentury and even under low
emissions becoming a 70-year event.
Prudhomme et al. 2002; 2003) explored the issue of
downscaling GCMs to a scale relevant to hydrological mod-
elling for flood frequency studies. Starting with HadCM2
output, they used a series of downscaling methods to gen-
erate inputs to a hydrological model. They used three
equally plausible scenarios, increases in frontal activity
with decreased intensity, increased convective activity with
extreme events with increased intensity, and increased
rainfall without any change in variability. While all three
scenarios lead to increased magnitude and frequency of
flooding, the impact is strongly affected by the type of sce-
nario applied. All three scenarios led to increased frequency
and magnitude of extreme flow events; however, they argue
that weather generators would be more appropriate than
empirical methods. The largest uncertainty can be attrib-
uted to the GCM used with large changes in the magnitude
(Prudhomme et al., 2003). Booij et al. (2007) used a series of
different RCMs for different emissions for the Meuse River.
An increase of the 100-year flood by about 30% results
largely from increases in winter precipitation, and the
uncertainty because of the RCMs input is estimated. Akhtar
et al. (2008) demonstrate that RCMs underestimate tem-
perature and overestimate precipitation.
Floods can be considered to have four main descriptors:
frequency, magnitude, duration, and location (in time) in
addition to place. Panagoulia and Dimou (1997) examined
the sensitivity of a Greek river basin to global climate change,
simulating change-pattern scenarios of temperature changes
coupled to precipitation changes; all scenarios yielded larger
flood volumes and greater average peaks with respect to the
precipitation increase. Loukas and Quick (1999) examined
the effects of climate change on floods in BC by modelling
two watersheds from two different climatic regimes in BC,
driven by CGCM1, by examining nine flood parameters.
Floods in the coastal watershed increase in magnitude by
14%, by volume 94%, in frequency by 11%, and by duration
44%; however, the location (timing) of floods remains
unchanged. In the interior watershed, floods decrease in
magnitude by 7%, in volume by 38%, and in frequency by
23%, with durations increasing by 2.6%. In the interior, the
location of floods advances by 20 days. Whitfield et al. (2003)
modelled future floods in Georgia Basin and showed that the
frequency of floods increased in all hydrological regimes.
While models were sufficient to reproduce mean conditions,
they performed less well with respect to extremes. In rainfall-
driven regimes, the frequency increased but not the magni-
tude. In Hybrid systems, winter rain-on-snow events
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
356
1.2
s
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o
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0 future climates may affect the frequency, magnitude, dura-
High Low
Decreasing Rainfall Influence
Figure 5 Model bias demonstrated by the relative magnitude of
the 10-year flood modelled using different data types relative to
mean observed 10-year flood. Red is observed, green is a high
resolution climate dataset, yellow is the NCEP reanalysis dataset,
and blue is based on data from Coupled Global Climate Model 1
after Whitfield et al. 2003.
increased, while summer snowmelt floods decreased. In
snowmelt systems, the magnitude and duration of floods
increased. Maurer and Duffy (2005) consider uncertainty in
projections of streamflow changes to climate change in Cali-
fornia using 10 GCMs with statistical downscaling and bias
correction to force a hydrological model. While the GCMs
predict significantly different regional climate responses,
hydrological responses were robust across models: decreases
in summer low flows and increases in winter flows, and a
shift of flow to earlier in the year. An example of model bias
is given in Figure 5; Whitfield et al. (2003) modelled stream-
flow in present climates using the UBC Watershed Model
and compared the distribution of observed floods with those
modelled for the observation period using different inputs.
The bias between observed floods and modelled floods is
greatest for rainfall-driven systems and least for snowmelt
systems. Higher resolution input data such as the 1-km
Danard set has less bias than those of larger grids (National
Centres for Environmental Prediction and CGCM1).
Abbaspour et al. (2009) modelled future streamflows in Iran
using CGCM3.1 downscaled to 37 climate stations and a soil
water assessment tool hydrological model. Their results
show that wet areas of Iran get wetter and dry areas get drier,
with more frequent and larger intensity floods in wet
regions. At a regional level, the differences between their
results for scenarios A1b, A2, and B2 were smaller than the
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
Journal of Flood Risk Management © 2012 The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
Whitfield
uncertainty in the hydrological model; however, at smaller
watershed scales and in the dry areas of Iran, there were
differences between scenarios. Veijalainen and Vehviläinen
(2008) studied the effects of climate change on design floods
of high-hazard dams in Finland. They use a form of the delta
method to assess five climate change scenarios – the effect
varies depending upon location, the type of basin, and the
primary mechanism of the flood. Where floods were from
spring snowmelt, there was little change; in southern and
western areas, summer floods driven by rainfall increased
due to increase precipitation. These papers and other illus-
trate the connection between the present hydrological proc-
esses and future climate changes. Temperature controls the
melting of stored frozen water; warmer atmospheric tem-
peratures will result in earlier snowmelt and shorter periods
with snow on the ground. At the local scale, both the form of
precipitation during the winter and the change in amount in
tion, and timing of floods involving frozen forms of water.
Veijalainen and Vehviläinen (2008) examined the effect
of climate change on design floods of high-hazard dams
in Finland, simulating design floods for the periods 1961–
2000 and 2070–2100. Temperature and precipitation were
changed using a delta method for five scenarios. For the 34
dams included in the study, the effect varied depending
upon location, the type of basin, and the cause of the flood.
In the north, floods were a product of spring snowmelt, and
floods did not change significantly; in the south and west
of Finland, the design floods were summer floods that
increased because of design precipitation.
Simonovic and Li (2003) provided a methodology for
assessment of climate change impacts on large-scale flood
protection systems using a modelling framework. Tempera-
ture and precipitation are used as the main factors affecting
flood flow generation. Their modelling framework is a
regional dynamic hydroclimatological assessment model
that uses floods flows, capacity of control structure, and
failure flow levels at different places in the system. Depend-
ing on which climate model is used and on the importance of
snowmelt contribution and catchment characteristics and
location, the impact of climate change on the flood regime
(magnitude and frequency) can be positive or negative, high-
lighting the uncertainty still remaining in climate change
impacts (Reynard et al., 2004). Wang et al. (2005) used
output from a RCM driven by ECHAM and ERA40 to drive
a HBV model of the Suir River in Ireland. This modelling
reproduced present day streamflow relatively well but over-
predicted flooding. Projected future shows an increase in
flood frequency and intensity, reflected by shorter return
periods for extreme floods. Wang et al. (2005) suggested
that a conceptual model is capable of capturing local vari-
ability of river flooding. Shrestha and Nestmann (2009) con-
sider physically based and data-driven models, and how
J Flood Risk Management 5 (2012) 336–365
Changing floods in future climates
uncertainties are propagated in flood predictions. All four
models used (hydrodynamic, Muskingum-Cunge, artificial
neural network, and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems
adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system) were
capable of producing good results, but there are statistical
differences (Nash-Sutcliffe and root mean square error) in
performance and handling of uncertainty. When using
hydrological models for flood projections, better practice is
to use more than one model and more than one set of model
parameters, and to judge the output not only on goodness of
fit but also on the handling of errors.
Reducing future risk
Dzurik (1978) emphasised the fact that floods are a natural
occurrence and a natural consequence of rain and snow. A
flood plain is the land that is flooded or could be flooded
when the channel is unable to accommodate run-off for
its watershed. Many rivers overflow their banks every year;
others only do so rarely. Over time, all rivers will. Floods will
cause damage wherever societies choose to expose them-
selves to this risk. Bruce (1999) suggested that whatever
the outcome of emerging research on extreme events in
a changing climate, it is evident that climate adaptation
through disaster mitigation measures is of increasing
importance with growing populations in more vulnerable
regions. Structural approaches to adaptation or mitigation
flood damage generally include thorough hydrological
analysis, such as flood frequency analysis, hydraulic, and
hydrological modelling studies, and such approaches will
continue to be used.
Nonstructural measures of reducing flood damage, such
as delineating and regulating floodplains at a socially
acceptable level of risk, depend on similar analyses but
focus more on avoidance. Hayes (2004) described how an
interdisciplinary approach to large-scale nonstructural
flood hazard mitigation might function. Krasovskaia et al.
(2007) evaluated the roll of public perception of floods in
the countries around the North Sea. They report that a
limited interest in flood hazard is common; people are
passive and reluctant about moving, however, reckoning
about the flooding of their own housing different between
countries. Many residents living on flood plains or in other
flood-prone areas are unaware and uneducated with respect
to the risks they face. Responsible communities should
ensure that all occupants of homes and businesses at risk
are actively informed.
Many hydropower projects balance flood control and
power generation. Lee et al. (2009) consider how future tem-
perature changes would impact the US Northwest; with
warmer temperatures, snow packs are expected to be lower,
freshet earlier, and summer flows lower. In such future con-
ditions, different operating rules will be required. Lee et al.
J Flood Risk Management 5 (2012) 336–365
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357
(2009) simulated the Columbia River Basin under present
conditions and also for a 2 °C increase in air temperature
adjusting both flood control and reservoir infilling rules.
Balancing multiple objectives, as is required in many
managed water systems, may require changes in exposure to
risk. In the case of the Columbia, new rule curves were
developed, which did not change flood risks.
The complexity of existing situations needs to be taken
into account for adapting to future flooding. Tol and Langen
(2000) provide a 1000-year history of flooding in the Rhine
delta where the current vulnerabilities depend more on the
complex interaction of economics, institutions, politics, and
to a lesser extent climate. Despite a ban on building in the
‘strong current zone’ (the area with 0- to 20-year flood-
return periods), many residential buildings were build in the
floodplain of the Chaudière River (Roy et al., 2003). Roy
et al. (2003) argue that in future, flood damages will increase
for two reasons: first, because building sites are still available,
and second, no flood protection works have been erected.
Similarly, Robert et al. (2003) examined the effectiveness of
flood damage reduction measures in the Montréal region. As
in other regions of Canada, flood damage reduction meas-
ures based on designation and mapping of floodplains have
had no effect on occupancy, have failed to reduce flood
damages, and have not halted increases in such damages.
Hunt (2002) suggested that long-term solutions to flooding
problems, particularly in a changing climate, should be
sought in a wider social context.
A complete review of this is outside the scope of this
review. Table 5 presents a series of potential questions struc-
tured around the key issues involved in floods in present and
future climates. These questions to a degree parallel the
Blöschl et al. (2007) report on the United Nations Educa-
tional, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation working group
on the relative role of climatic variability and land-cover
changes on floods. Identifying, assessing, and detecting
changes in flood processes are fundamental to any detailed
consideration of floods. Different geographical areas may
face a transition to another flood mechanism in a future
climate regime. Because land cover and climatic variability
effects on floods are controlled by catchment flow paths,
changes in streamflow are often reported as climate-driven
in the absence of any possible land use or other hydrological
alteration. Watersheds are dynamic systems with many
processes and interactions in the situation where land use
and climate change interactions and feedbacks may be
altered. Data never are completely sufficient for an accurate
representation of the hydrological environment, heteroge-
neity, and scale effects expected to be important in impact
studies; thus, there needs to be a careful examination of
how to combine measurements and models across scales.
Hydrology remains a data-limited discipline, and the degree
of limitation is often related to the development stage of the
© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada
358 Whitfield

Table 5 Potential questions for assessing floods in future climates

Flood processes and methods for detecting change:
Do the various earth sciences and other field consider and address change in similar ways?
What are the hydrological responses to change, how local are the space and timescales of change?
Which methods of change analysis/detection are suitable, robust, and appropriate?
Is the delta change approach sufficiently robust, particularly where process change is involved?
Changes in flooding in geographic areas:
How can one best use global climate model results in view of the scale change to local watersheds?
How does uncertainty propagate from climate to hydrological models?
How can analyses using spatial analogues be best combined with results from climate models?
If atmospheric circulation patterns change, does this decrease/increase floods at a regional or local scale?
How can one better relate changes in the mean atmospheric characteristics to changes of the extremes?
Land cover and climatic variability effects on floods:
How do land-use change and climate variability modify flow pathways and storage?
What are the changes in soil structure due to vegetation changes (e.g. break-down of soil structure, mineralogy)?
What are the changes in the timescales, e.g. over what timescales does soil structure change occur in response to land cover
change?
What is the resilience of soil hydraulic characteristics to change?
What is the recharge for different settings and how does it change with climate/land-use changes?
Dynamic systems feedbacks and interactions:
How do floods and low flows change with time, and what are the feedback mechanisms controlling them?
What feedbacks of land cover/climate impacts on water resources exist?
What are the positive and negative feedback loops?
How does the water balance affect run-off components (interactions between long and short timescales)?
What are the changes in the coupling between groundwater and surface water linked with land cover change?
Combining measurements and models across scales:
What percentage of catchment area can be changed to another land cover type before a significant change in the flood regime
occurs?
How do changes in the soil’s hydraulic characteristics because of vegetation changes transfer to larger scales?
How can one upscale local information on soils, vegetation, groundwater, and groundwater–surface water interactions to larger
basins (10 000 km2)?
What are integrative concepts of upscaling/downscaling in the context of impact analyses?
What is the relative role of climatic variability and land cover change on floods and low flows as a function of scale in different
environments?
Data scarcity:
How can climate/rainfall, catchments, aquifers, soils, and vegetation be classified (with a view on floods and low flows)?
What processes switch between regimes (temporally, spatially)?
How to best overcome data scarcity to assess the impacts on water resources because of land cover change, and what are the
low-cost options for measuring hydrological response at various scales?
What is the necessary network density required to address a management problem such as the ecological consequences in a
stream after catchment area development?
What variables should be strategically collected that would more directly address impact on hydrological response?

country. To better understand hydrology, the issue of
data scarcity needs to be overcome. The questions in
Table 5 highlight the issues that should considered in
discussions of this complex topic.
Final remarks
Pielke (1999) argued that we ‘know’ the wrong things
about the nature of the flood problem. We believe that
flood frequencies are well understood. Damaging floods in
recent years are unprecedented because of ‘global warming’,
levees prevent damages, and flood forecasts are universally
available. Pielke (1999) suggested that we do not ‘know’
enough about why and with what intensity we should act.
We need to understand that social vulnerability to floods
is not well-understood; data on flood casualties are not
always a proxy for flood risk, and data on flood damages
are also not always a proxy for flood risk. Finally, Pielke
(1999) questions whether we ‘know’ enough about what
might be done. Does knowledge leads to action? Can the
flood problem be addressed without leadership and finan-
cial support?
Increases in rainfall and in rainfall intensity suggest that
most prevalent flood-generating processes are likely to
increase. However, warming will also alter many other
aspects of the global water cycle increasing evaporation,
changing land cover and soil properties, changing precipita-
tion patterns and intensity, and also affecting the processes

© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada J Flood Risk Management 5 (2012) 336–365
Journal of Flood Risk Management © 2012 The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
Changing floods in future climates
involved in surface storage of water including snowpack gen-
eration, snowmelt, river ice break-up, and glacial melt. Many
of these processes are active in flood generation and will
result in changes in flooding patterns at the local scale and
also in the spatial distribution of flooding processes on a
larger sale, as winters decrease in length and winter precipi-
tation changes.
Every year, many papers are published on changes to flood-
ing related to both observed and projected climatic changes.
As is expected for a place-based science such as hydrology,
most of these studies are site-specific. This site specificity
presents a problem for the global community, as reports are
often presented in a manner that does not adequately support
their inclusion in a global analysis. Typically, this is largely
because insufficient background is provided to ensure that
their results can be properly classified. A typology such as
presented was intended to suggest one such classification. The
intention of this review was to present a summary of the
complexities of the study of floods in present and future
climates in a manner that would help better communicate
potential changes to floods in the future.
Hydrological processes including floods take place at rela-
tively local scale and not at the global scale; making simplis-
tic generalisations about flooding in future climates is
problematic. Many processes that play a role in flood gen-
eration are unresolved in models at the global scale. At the
watershed scale, land-use effects are more important than
changes in the meteorological inputs of future climates.
While the general view of scientists is that the warming of
the atmosphere will increase the capacity of the atmosphere
to hold water, and this warming will also accelerate many of
the processes involved in the redistribution of moisture in
the atmosphere and will increase excess rainfall. However,
making a simplistic pronouncement that flooding will
increase with changing climate is unwise.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to express his appreciation to Slobo-
dan Simonovic for his encouragement in completing this
review. Peter Guttorp and John Clague both suggested that
the topic would be of interest. Many thanks are due to
Andrew Fabro, Sarah Perrin, and Sabrina Wong of the Envi-
ronment Canada Library in Vancouver for their assistance
in gathering together the literature that is summarised here.
The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers
and the Associate Editor whose comments and suggestions
improved the manuscript. Finally, to my many colleagues in
the Canadian water community, and elsewhere, who have
contributed to discussions about our understanding of
floods, my thanks to each of you.
J Flood Risk Management 5 (2012) 336–365
Journal of Flood Risk Management © 2012 The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
359
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© 2012 Her Majesty in Right of Canada