Articles | Volume 28, issue 16
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-3755-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-3755-2024
Research article
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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

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Cited articles

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Berghuijs, W. R., Harrigan, S., Molnar, P., Slater, L. J., and Kirchner, J. W.: The relative importance of different flood-generating mechanisms across Europe, Water Resour. Res., 55, 4582–4593, 2019b. a
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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.
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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