The Relative Importance of Different Flood-Generating Mechanisms Across Europe

Inferring the mechanisms causing river flooding is key to understanding past, present, and future flood risk. However, a quantitative spatially distributed overview of the mechanisms that drive flooding across Europe is currently unavailable. In addition, studies that classify catchments according to their flood-driving mechanisms often identify a single mechanism per location, although multiple mechanisms typically contribute to flood risk. We introduce a new method that uses seasonality statistics to estimate the relative importance of extreme precipitation, soil moisture excess, and snowmelt as flood drivers. Applying this method to a European data set of maximum annual flow dates in several thousand catchments reveals that from 1960 to 2010 relatively few annual floods were caused by annual rainfall peaks. Instead, most European floods were caused by snowmelt and by the concurrence of heavy precipitation with high antecedent soil moisture. For most catchments, the relative importance of these mechanisms has not substantially changed during the past five decades. Exposing the regional mechanisms underlying Europe's most costly natural hazard is a key first step in identifying the processes that require most attention in future flood research.