Effect of climatic oscillations on flood occurrence on Papaloapan River, Mexico, during the 1550-2000 period

This study presents a chronology of historical and measured flood events in the Papaloapan River basin of Mexico during 450years. Twenty-eight historical floods were recorded during the period 1550-1948 on this river and one flood event (1969) in the instrumental era (1949-2000), of which 14 were extraordinary floods and only 15 were catastrophic ones. There were several flood-rich decades during 1860-1870, 1880-1890, 1920-1930 and 1940-1950. Wavelet analysis found a significant flooding periodicity of 58years. The wavelet coherence analysis found that flooding had an in-phase relationship with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and also with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Logistic regression corroborated that there exists a positive relationship between floods events and these two natural climatic oscillations. The logistic regression model predicted correctly 92% of flood events.