The largest floods in the High Rhine basin since 1268 assessed from documentary and instrumental evidence |
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| Authors: | Oliver Wetter Christian Pfister Rolf Weingartner Jürg Luterbacher Tom Reist Jürg Trösch |
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| Institution: | 1. Institute of History, Section of Economic, Social and Environmental History (WSU), University of Bern , CH-3012, Bern, Switzerland;2. Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern , CH-3012, Bern, Switzerland oliver.wetter@hist.unibe.ch;4. Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern , CH-3012, Bern, Switzerland;5. Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern , CH-3012, Bern, Switzerland;6. Institute of Geography , Hallerstrasse 12, CH-3012, Bern, Switzerland;7. Department of Geography;8. Climatology, Climate Dynamics and Climate Change , Justus Liebig University of Giessen , Giessen, Germany;9. TK Consult AG , Seefeldstrasse 287, CH-8008, Zürich, Switzerland |
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| Abstract: | Abstract The magnitudes of the largest known floods of the River Rhine in Basel since 1268 were assessed using a hydraulic model drawing on a set of pre-instrumental evidence and daily hydrological measurements from 1808. The pre-instrumental evidence, consisting of flood marks and documentary data describing extreme events with the customary reference to specific landmarks, was “calibrated” by comparing it with the instrumental series for the overlapping period between the two categories of evidence (1808–1900). Summer (JJA) floods were particularly frequent in the century between 1651–1750, when precipitation was also high. Severe winter (DJF) floods have not occurred since the late 19th century despite a significant increase in winter precipitation. Six catastrophic events involving a runoff greater than 6000 m 3 s‐1 are documented prior to 1700. They were initiated by spells of torrential rainfall of up to 72 h (1480 event) and preceded by long periods of substantial precipitation that saturated the soils, and/or by abundant snowmelt. All except two (1999 and 2007) of the 43 identified severe events (SEs: defined as having runoff > 5000 and < 6000 m 3 s ‐1) occurred prior to 1877. Not a single SE is documented from 1877 to 1998. The intermediate 121-year-long “flood disaster gap” is unique over the period since 1268. The effect of river regulations (1714 for the River Kander; 1877 for the River Aare) and the building of reservoirs in the 20th century upon peak runoff were investigated using a one-dimensional hydraulic flood-routing model. Results show that anthropogenic effects only partially account for the “flood disaster gap” suggesting that variations in climate should also be taken into account in explaining these features. Citation Wetter, O., Pfister, C., Weingartner, R., Luterbacher, J., Reist, T., & Trösch, J. (2011) The largest floods in the High Rhine basin since 1268 assessed from documentary and instrumental evidence. Hydrol. Sci. J. 56(5), 733–758. |
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| Keywords: | historical climatology historical hydrology High Rhine basin pre-instrumental floods river corrections river hydraulics flood routing St Venant equation numerical hydrodynamics circulation patterns extreme events daily sea-level pressure |
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