TY - JOUR
T1 - Flash flood evolution in North-Western Mediterranean
AU - Llasat, Maria Carmen
AU - Marcos, Raül
AU - Llasat-Botija, Montserrat
AU - Gilabert, Joan
AU - Turco, Marco
AU - Quintana-Seguí, Pere
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was performed within the European project DRIHM (Distributed Research Infrastructure for Hydro-Meteorology. Project n. 283568 UE Framework Programme 7) and the program HyMeX (Hydrological Mediterranean Experiment) . It was also partially supported by the Italian project of Interest “NextData” of the Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research ( PNR2011-2013 ). We acknowledge the E-OBS dataset from the EU-FP6 project ENSEMBLES ( http://ensembles-eu.metoffice.com ) and the data providers in the ECA&D project ( http://www.ecad.eu ). Our thanks to La Vanguardia and Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros (CCS). We thank Dani Mast for the translation of this article.
PY - 2014/11
Y1 - 2014/11
N2 - The present paper shows an in-depth analysis of the evolution of floods and precipitation in Catalonia for the period 1981-2010. In order to have homogeneous information, and having in mind that not gauge data was available for all the events, neither for all the rivers and stream flows, daily press from a specific newspaper has been systematically analysed for this period. Furthermore a comparison with a longer period starting in 1900 has been done. 219 flood events (mainly flash flood events) have been identified for the period of 30. years (375 starting in 1900), 79 of them were ordinary, 117 of them were extraordinary and 23 of them were catastrophic, being autumn and summer the seasons with the maxima values. 19% of the events caused a total of 110 casualties. 60% of them died when they tried to cross the street or the stream. Factors like the evolution of precipitation, population density and other socio-economical aspects have been considered. The trend analysis shows an increase of 1 flood/decade that probably has been mainly due to inter-annual and intra-annual changes in population density and in land-use and land-cover.
AB - The present paper shows an in-depth analysis of the evolution of floods and precipitation in Catalonia for the period 1981-2010. In order to have homogeneous information, and having in mind that not gauge data was available for all the events, neither for all the rivers and stream flows, daily press from a specific newspaper has been systematically analysed for this period. Furthermore a comparison with a longer period starting in 1900 has been done. 219 flood events (mainly flash flood events) have been identified for the period of 30. years (375 starting in 1900), 79 of them were ordinary, 117 of them were extraordinary and 23 of them were catastrophic, being autumn and summer the seasons with the maxima values. 19% of the events caused a total of 110 casualties. 60% of them died when they tried to cross the street or the stream. Factors like the evolution of precipitation, population density and other socio-economical aspects have been considered. The trend analysis shows an increase of 1 flood/decade that probably has been mainly due to inter-annual and intra-annual changes in population density and in land-use and land-cover.
KW - Climate change
KW - Flash floods
KW - Floods
KW - Press data
KW - Societal impact
KW - Vulnerability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84904088809&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.atmosres.2014.05.024
DO - 10.1016/j.atmosres.2014.05.024
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84904088809
SN - 0169-8095
VL - 149
SP - 230
EP - 243
JO - Atmospheric Research
JF - Atmospheric Research
ER -