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Water
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Assessment of Hydrological and Hydro-Meteorological Extreme Events
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Assessment of Hydrological and Hydro-Meteorological Extreme Events

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Hydrology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2021) | Viewed by 17080

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Margarida Lopes Rodrigues Liberato

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real & Instituto Dom Luiz, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: climate variability and change; natural hazards and impacts; extratropical cyclones; extreme events (windstorms, floods, heatwaves, droughts); water resources; moisture sources
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Hydrological and hydro-meteorological extremes have recently gained greater relevance to the general public and policy makers, partly as a consequence of the large number of weather-driven hazardous events and associated human, environmental and property losses that have occurred worldwide in the last decade.

In 2019, natural catastrophic events associated with hydrological and hydro-meteorological extremes included cyclone Idai in Mozambique and neighbouring countries, which caused massive flooding in March 2019; extensive monsoonal flooding in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh in July 2019; hurricane Dorian, the strongest of the Atlantic season, which caused catastrophic damage in the Bahamas and affected the US and Canada in September 2019; and the very severe typhoon Hagibis, which struck Japan with unprecedented torrential rainfall, damaging winds, and storm surge flooding after rapidly intensifying over the Western Pacific Ocean in October 2019.

Understanding how the frequency and severity of hydrological and hydro-meteorological events are changing at both the global and regional scales and the reasons behind this variability is vital for water cycle research and is a fundamental step towards improved disaster risk assessment, reduced uncertainty, and better decision making.

For this Special Issue of Water, we welcome authors to submit research on, but not strictly limited to, the following topics:

  • Extreme hydrological and/or hydro-meteorological events: case studies or climatological analysis;
  • Compound, concurrent, and cascading events analysis;
  • Variability at different temporal and spatial scales ;
  • Climate change assessment, impacts, and/or attribution;
  • Dynamical mechanisms associated with extremes;
  • New approaches and methods for observational and numerical analysis;
  • Risk and uncertainty assessments;
  • Applications: big data management and data visualisation for scientific research, Artificial Intelligence methods and tools applied to extreme hydrological or hydro-meteorological assessment.

Prof. Dr. Margarida Lopes Rodrigues Liberato
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • hydrological extremes
  • hydro-meteorological extremes
  • weather extremes
  • climate extremes
  • climate change and attribution
  • storms, cyclones, fronts
  • floods, droughts and impacts
  • dynamical mechanisms
  • teleconnections
  • risk and uncertainty

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 52087 KiB  
Article
The Effect of Water Vapor Originating from Land on the 2018 Drought Development in Europe
by Fares Al Hasan, Andreas Link and Ruud J. van der Ent
Water 2021, 13(20), 2856; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13202856 - 13 Oct 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1967
Abstract
The 2018 summer drought in Europe was particularly extreme in terms of intensity and impact due to the combination of low rainfall and high temperatures. However, it remains unclear how this drought developed in time and space in such an extreme way. In [...] Read more.
The 2018 summer drought in Europe was particularly extreme in terms of intensity and impact due to the combination of low rainfall and high temperatures. However, it remains unclear how this drought developed in time and space in such an extreme way. In this study we aimed to get a better understanding of the role of land–atmosphere interactions. More specifically, we investigated whether there was a change in water vapor originating from land, if that caused a reduction in rainfall, and by this mechanism possibly the propagation and intensification of the drought in Europe. Our first step was to use remote sensing products for soil moisture content (SMC) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to see where the 2018 drought started and how it developed in time and space. Our SMC and NDVI analysis showed that the 2018 drought started to impact the soil and vegetation state in June in Scandinavia and the British Isles. After that it moved towards the west of Europe where it intensified in July and August. In September, it started to decay. In October, drought was observed in Southeast Europe as well. Based on the observed patterns we divided Europe into six regions of similar spatiotemporal characteristics of SMC and NDVI. Then, we used a global gridded dataset of the fate of land evaporation (i.e., where it ends up as precipitation) to investigate whether the drought intensification and propagation was impacted by the reduction in water vapor transported from the regions that first experienced the drought. This impact was investigated by identifying the anomalies in the water vapor originating from land recycling, imports, and exports within Europe during the spring, summer, and autumn seasons. From these regions we identified four drought regions and investigated the changes in water vapor originating from source regions on the development of drought in those regions. It was found that during the onset phase of the 2018 drought in Europe that the water vapor originating from land played an important role in mitigating the precipitation anomalies as, for example, the share of land evaporation contributing to precipitation increased from 27% (normal years) to 38% (2018) during July in the west of Europe. Land evaporation played a minor role in amplifying it during the intensification phase of the drought as the share of land evaporation contribution to precipitation decreased from 23% (normal years) to 21% (2018) during August in the west of Europe. These findings are somewhat in contrast to similar studies in other continents that found the land surface to play a strong amplifying role for drought development. Subsequently, we found that the relative increase in the amount of land water vapor originating from eastern half of Europe played a role in delaying the onset and accelerating the decay of the 2018 drought in the west of Europe. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Hydrological and Hydro-Meteorological Extreme Events)
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39 pages, 9936 KiB  
Article
Recent Changes in Hydroclimatic Patterns over Medium Niger River Basins at the Origin of the 2020 Flood in Niamey (Niger)
by Giovanni Massazza, Maurizio Bacci, Luc Descroix, Mohamed Housseini Ibrahim, Edoardo Fiorillo, Gaptia Lawan Katiellou, Geremy Panthou, Alessandro Pezzoli, Maurizio Rosso, Elisa Sauzedde, Andrea Terenziani, Tiziana De Filippis, Leandro Rocchi, Sara Burrone, Maurizio Tiepolo, Théo Vischel and Vieri Tarchiani
Water 2021, 13(12), 1659; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13121659 - 14 Jun 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 5109
Abstract
Niamey, the capital of Niger, is particularly prone to floods, since it is on the banks of the Niger River, which in its middle basin has two flood peaks: one in summer (the red flood) and one in winter (the black flood). In [...] Read more.
Niamey, the capital of Niger, is particularly prone to floods, since it is on the banks of the Niger River, which in its middle basin has two flood peaks: one in summer (the red flood) and one in winter (the black flood). In 2020, the Niger River in Niamey reached its all-time highest levels following an abundant rainy season. On the other hand, the floods in Niamey have been particularly frequent in the last decade, a symptom of a change in hydroclimatic behaviour already observed since the end of the great droughts of the 1970s and 1980s and which is identified with the name of Sahelian Paradox. This study, starting from the analysis of the 2020 flood and from the update of the rating curve of the Niamey hydrometric station, analyses the rainfall–runoff relationship on the Sahelian basins of the Medium Niger River Basin (MNRB) that are at the origin of the local flood. The comparative analysis of runoffs, annual maximum flows (AMAX) and runoff coefficients with various rainfall indices calculated on gridded datasets allowed to hydroclimatically characterise the last decade as a different period from the wet one before the drought, the dry one and the post-drought one. Compared to the last one, the current period is characterised by a sustained increase in hydrological indicators (AMAX +27%) consistent with the increase in both the accumulation of precipitation (+11%) and the number (+51%) and magnitude (+54%) of extreme events in the MNRB. Furthermore, a greater concentration of rainfall and extremes (+78%) in August contributes to reinforcing the red flood’s positive anomalies (+2.23 st.dev in 2020). The study indicates that under these conditions the frequency of extreme hydrological events in Niamey will tend to increase further also because of the concurrence of drivers such as river-bed silting and levee effects. Consequently, the study concludes with the need for a comprehensive flood-risk assessment on the Niamey city that considers both recent hydroclimatic trends and urbanisation dynamics in flood zones hence defining the most appropriate risk-reduction strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Hydrological and Hydro-Meteorological Extreme Events)
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17 pages, 20522 KiB  
Article
Consecutive Extratropical Cyclones Daniel, Elsa and Fabien, and Their Impact on the Hydrological Cycle of Mainland Portugal
by Milica Stojanovic, Ana Gonçalves, Rogert Sorí, Marta Vázquez, Alexandre M. Ramos, Raquel Nieto, Luis Gimeno and Margarida L. R. Liberato
Water 2021, 13(11), 1476; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13111476 - 24 May 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3121
Abstract
The extratropical cyclones that originate in the North Atlantic and propagate towards Europe are one of the major natural hazards in mid-latitudes. In December 2019, three consecutive extratropical cyclones named Daniel, Elsa, and Fabien affected Portugal. In this study, the synoptic and upper-level [...] Read more.
The extratropical cyclones that originate in the North Atlantic and propagate towards Europe are one of the major natural hazards in mid-latitudes. In December 2019, three consecutive extratropical cyclones named Daniel, Elsa, and Fabien affected Portugal. In this study, the synoptic and upper-level dynamic conditions associated with these systems during their impact in mainland Portugal are evaluated. The persistent intense zonal flow that crossed the entire Atlantic revealed by the integrated vapor transport and the vertically integrated moisture flux favored these hydro-meteorological systems. The patterns of mean sea level pressure, geopotential, potential vorticity, total column water, and convective available potential energy were used to characterize the influence of every system over mainland Portugal. A cluster analysis of monthly precipitation permitted the classification of the country into four main regions named the Northwest, Centre West, Northeast and Centre East, and South region on which the analysis was focused. The three storms affected every region on consecutive days by the middle of December, producing extreme precipitation events and significant effects on the accumulated rainfall and runoff, particularly in the Northwest, Centre West, Northeast and Centre East regions. As consequence, multiple incidences of damage were reported along mainland Portugal. However, an assessment of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation–Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) on time scales of 1, 3, 6, and 12 months revealed a positive impact of rainfall increase on the attenuation of short and long term accumulated drought conditions, particularly in the center and north regions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Hydrological and Hydro-Meteorological Extreme Events)
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14 pages, 1371 KiB  
Article
Changing River Flood Timing in the Northeastern and Upper Midwest United States: Weakening of Seasonality over Time?
by Nirajan Dhakal and Richard N. Palmer
Water 2020, 12(7), 1951; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12071951 - 09 Jul 2020
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2010
Abstract
Climate change is likely to impact precipitation as well as snow accumulation and melt in the Northeastern and Upper Midwest United States, ultimately affecting the quantity and seasonal distribution of streamflow. The objective of this study is to analyze seasonality of long-term daily [...] Read more.
Climate change is likely to impact precipitation as well as snow accumulation and melt in the Northeastern and Upper Midwest United States, ultimately affecting the quantity and seasonal distribution of streamflow. The objective of this study is to analyze seasonality of long-term daily annual maximum streamflow (AMF) records and its changes for 158 sites in Northeastern and Upper Midwest Unites States. A comprehensive circular statistical approach comprising a kernel density method was used to assess the seasonality of AMF. Temporal changes were analyzed by separating the AMF records into two 30-year sub-periods (1951–1980 and 1981–2010). Results for temporal change in seasonality showed mixed pattern/trend across the stations. While for majority of stations, the distribution of AMF timing is strongly unimodal (concentrated around spring season) for the period 1951–1980, the seasonal modes have weakened during the period 1981–2010 for several stations along the coastal region with simultaneous emergence of multiple modes indicating changes of seasonality therein. The fresh statistical approach based on non-parametric circular density estimates reduces some of the limitations of previous studies to detect and model event timing distributions with multiple seasons and addresses issues of non-stationarity in the data records of extreme events. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Hydrological and Hydro-Meteorological Extreme Events)
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17 pages, 2238 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Streamflow Variability and Trends in the Meta River, Colombia
by Marco Arrieta-Castro, Adriana Donado-Rodríguez, Guillermo J. Acuña, Fausto A. Canales, Ramesh S. V. Teegavarapu and Bartosz Kaźmierczak
Water 2020, 12(5), 1451; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12051451 - 20 May 2020
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 3904
Abstract
The aim of this research is the detection and analysis of existing trends in the Meta River, Colombia, based on the streamflow records from seven gauging stations in its main course, for the period between June 1983 to July 2019. The Meta River [...] Read more.
The aim of this research is the detection and analysis of existing trends in the Meta River, Colombia, based on the streamflow records from seven gauging stations in its main course, for the period between June 1983 to July 2019. The Meta River is one of the principal branches of the Orinoco River, and it has a high environmental and economic value for this South American country. The methods employed for the trend detection and quantification were the Mann–Kendall (MK) test, the modified MK (MMK) test, and the Sen’s slope (SS) estimator. Statistically significant trends (at a 95% level of confidence) were detected in more than 30% of the 105 evaluated datasets. The results from the MK test indicate the presence of statistically significant downward trends in the upstream stations and upward trends in the downstream stations, with the latter presenting steep positive slopes. The findings of this study are valuable assets for water resources management and sustainable planning in the Meta River Basin. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Hydrological and Hydro-Meteorological Extreme Events)
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