Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
HESS
Articles | Volume 28, issue 16
Articles | Volume 28, issue 16
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-3755-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-3755-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 28, issue 16
Research article
 | Highlight paper
 | 
20 Aug 2024
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 20 Aug 2024

An increase in the spatial extent of European floods over the last 70 years

Beijing Fang, Emanuele Bevacqua, Oldrich Rakovec, and Jakob Zscheischler

Data sets

Mesoscale Hydrologic Model based historical streamflow simulation over Europe at 1/8 degree O. Rakovec et al. https://doi.org/10.48758/ufz.14403

Global Runoff Database Federal Institute of Hydrology https://portal.grdc.bafg.de/applications/public.html?publicuser=PublicUser

River discharge and related historical data from the Global Flood Awareness System. v4.0 S. Grimaldi et al. https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/cems-glofas-historical

Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Count Center for International Earth Science Information Network - CIESIN - Columbia University https://doi.org/10.7927/H4JW8BX5

E-OBS gridded dataset ECA & D https://www.ecad.eu/download/ensembles/download.php

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Executive editor
The topic is of interest to a wide audience. The authors have developed a new approach to assess changes in the spatial extent of flooding.
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Short summary
We use grid-based runoff from a hydrological model to identify large spatiotemporally connected flood events in Europe, assess extent trends over the last 70 years, and attribute the trends to different drivers. Our findings reveal a general increase in flood extent, with regional variations driven by diverse factors. The study not only enables a thorough examination of flood events across multiple basins but also highlights the potential challenges arising from changing flood extents.
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