The role of soil moisture and weather patterns for flood occurrence and characteristics at the river basin scale
type: CreativeWork
description: Flood generation at the scale of large river basins is triggered by the interaction of the hydrological pre-conditions and the meteorological event conditions at different spatial and temporal scales. This interaction controls diverse flood generating processes and results in floods varying in magnitude and extent, duration as well as socio-economic consequences. For a process-based understanding of the underlying cause-effect relationships, systematic approaches are required. These approaches have to cover the complete causal flood chain, including the flood triggering meteorological event in combination with the hydrological (pre-)conditions in the catchment, runoff generation, flood routing, possible floodplain inundation and finally flood losses. In this thesis, a comprehensive probabilistic process-based understanding of the causes and effects of floods is advanced. The spatial and temporal dynamics of flood events as well as the geophysical processes involved in the causal flood chain are revealed and the systematic interconnections within the flood chain are deciphered by means of the classification of their associated causes and effects. This is achieved by investigating the role of the hydrological pre-conditions and the meteorological event conditions with respect to flood occurrence, flood processes and flood characteristics as well as their interconnections at the river basin scale. Broadening the knowledge about flood triggers, which up to now has been limited to linking large-scale meteorological conditions to flood occurrence, the influence of large-scale pre-event hydrological conditions on flood initiation is investigated. Using the Elbe River basin as an example, a classification of soil moisture, a key variable of pre-event conditions, is developed and a probabilistic link between patterns of soil moisture and flood occurrence is established. The soil moisture classification is applied to continuously simulated soil moisture data which is generate…
abstract: Flood generation at the scale of large river basins is triggered by the interaction of the hydrological pre-conditions and the meteorological event conditions at different spatial and temporal scales. This interaction controls diverse flood generating processes and results in floods varying in magnitude and extent, duration as well as socio-economic consequences. For a process-based understanding of the underlying cause-effect relationships, systematic approaches are required. These approaches have to cover the complete causal flood chain, including the flood triggering meteorological event in combination with the hydrological (pre-)conditions in the catchment, runoff generation, flood routing, possible floodplain inundation and finally flood losses. In this thesis, a comprehensive probabilistic process-based understanding of the causes and effects of floods is advanced. The spatial and temporal dynamics of flood events as well as the geophysical processes involved in the causal flood chain are revealed and the systematic interconnections within the flood chain are deciphered by means of the classification of their associated causes and effects. This is achieved by investigating the role of the hydrological pre-conditions and the meteorological event conditions with respect to flood occurrence, flood processes and flood characteristics as well as their interconnections at the river basin scale. Broadening the knowledge about flood triggers, which up to now has been limited to linking large-scale meteorological conditions to flood occurrence, the influence of large-scale pre-event hydrological conditions on flood initiation is investigated. Using the Elbe River basin as an example, a classification of soil moisture, a key variable of pre-event conditions, is developed and a probabilistic link between patterns of soil moisture and flood occurrence is established. The soil moisture classification is applied to continuously simulated soil moisture data which is generate…
author: Nied, Manuela
keywords: floods, antecedent conditions, soil moisture patterns, weather patterns, flood types, Hochwasser, hydrologische Vorbedingungen, Muster der Bodenfeuchte, Wetterlagen, Hochwassertypen
date published: 2016-07-20
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:51:54Z
provider: Universität Potsdam - Diss
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Universität Potsdam