FLOODARC · Understanding long-term FLOOD pattern variability in Western Mediterranean using natural ARChives
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-04-01 → 2021-03-31
- EU contribution
- €185,076
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Understanding long-term FLOOD pattern variability in Western Mediterranean using natural ARChives
Floods affect more people worldwide than any other natural hazard. Society is becoming even more vulnerable to river flooding because of increasing populations and exposure of infrastructure. One of the greatest challenges in climate science is understanding the effects of climate variability on the spatial and temporal variability of floods. Unfortunately, climate change impacts on flooding are difficult to recognize partly due to geographically sparse flood records from catchments with natural flow regime and short instrumental datasets. Detection of temporal changes on local and regional flooding therefore requires long-term records to overcome the problems derived from their natural inter-annual and inter-decadal rainfall variability, particularly in Mediterranean climates. Natural sedimentary archives such as lake records provide centennial- to millennial-length flood reconstructions allowing to assess the dynamics of extreme events under natural climate variability beyond the instrumental period. In this scientific context FLOODARC action aimed to understand the long-term variability of extreme floods in Western Mediterranean, as well as to quantitatively assess the climate drivers. The reconstruction of past floods in different individual lacustrine records from unstudied areas of the Iberian Peninsula as well as the compilation of existing flood archives from SW Europe enabled to build a comprehensive dataset of long-term flood records in Western Mediterranean. Paleo Flood Frequency Analyses (PFFA) carried out on this paleohydrological database resulted in a useful tool to understand the spatial and temporal variability of floods at the regional level as well as to further comprehend the role of climate on flood frequency and intensity evolution.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Society is becoming more vulnerable to natural climate variability through increasing exposure of people and infrastructure. Notably, floods are among the most destructive natural hazards causing widespread loss of life, damage to infrastructure and economic deprivation. Robust knowledge about their future trends is therefore crucial for the sustainable development of societies worldwide, particularly in sensitive areas such as Western Mediterranean. This Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the long-term variability of hazardous (high-impact) floods at different temporal and spatial scales. Through this action the Experienced Researcher (ER) will work within the Hydro-Meteorology, Climate and Society Interactions (HMCIS) group at the Host Institution (IGE) to develop a high-impact flood database in Western Mediterranean. State-of-the art statistical tools applied to the flood database will allow the ER i) to evaluate, for the first time, the causes of non-stationarity in the long-term flood pattern evolution at a sub-continental scale and; ii) to investigate the role of the climate variability on the high-impact flood patterns at centennial to millennial time-scales in W Mediterranean. The ER has expertise in high-resolution proxies of flood events contained in lacustrine and fluvial sediments. He aims to obtain specific training in geo-statistical tools applied to Flood Hydrology at the Host Organization. This MSCA project will significantly contribute to the career development of the researcher and will enhance our current understanding of the natural variability of floods and its trace in the sedimentary record. Therefore, this study will help to address major concerns in relation to flood hazards and adaptation strategies in line with the European engagement with climate change (EU report 2012, Horizon 2020, Climate Action) and the EU Floods directive (2007/60/EC).
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITE GRENOBLE ALPES · GrenobleCoordinatorFrance
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union