Study Finds Climate Change Altering Europe's River Floods

Climate change is affecting the timing of river floods across Europe and societies may have to adapt to avoid future economic and environmental harm, scientists said.

Danube in Novi Sad, Serbia April 2006, Source: Wikimedia Commons

River floods are among the costliest natural disasters worldwide, causing annual damages of more than $100 billion. They affect millions of people each year because many towns and cities are built along rivers.

Examining flood data across a 50-year period, researchers found significant shifts in timing along the Atlantic coast of western Europe from 1960 to 2010.

According to a paper published in the journal Science, half of the measurement stations from England to Portugal showed floods were occurring on average at least 15 days earlier by 2010 compared to a half century earlier.

In northeastern Europe, earlier snow melts also brought river floods forward by at least eight days over the 50-year period, while areas around the North Sea are now seeing floods happen more than a week later than in 1960.

"If the trends in flood timing continue, considerable economic and environmental consequences may arise, because societies and ecosystems have adapted to the average within-year timing of floods," the authors concluded.

The study's authors, led by Guenter Bloeschl of Vienna's Technical University, cautioned that the precise mechanism by which flood patterns change is complex and still needs to be fully understood.

Read full article: ABC News

Media

Taxonomy

• River Studies
• Flood Management
• Climate Change
• River Engineering
• River Basin management
• Climate Change Adaptation
• Climate Change Resilience
• Flood damage
• Flood prediction
• River Engineering
• Flood Risk Management