Flood Risk Management: Research and Practice Samuels et al.

(eds)
2009 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-415-48507-4

European flash floods data collation and analysis

V. Bain & O. Newinger
CEREVE, cole Nationale des Ponts et Chauses, Marne-la-Vale, France

E. Gaume
LCPC, Nantes, France

P. Bernardara
EDF, Paris, France

M. Barbuc
National Institute of Hydrology and Water Management, Romania

A. Bateman, J. Garcia, V. Medina, D. Sempere-Torres & D. Velasco

GRAHI, Universitat Politcnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

L. Blakovicov
Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute, Bratislava, Slovak Republic

G. Blschl & A. Viglione

Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria

M. Borga
University of Padova, Padova, Italy

A. Dumitrescu, A. Irimescu & G. Stancalie

Meteorological Administration, Bucharest, Romania

S. Kohnova & J. Szolgay

Slovak University of Technology Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovak Republic

A. Koutroulis & I. Tsanis

Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece

L. Marchi & E. Preciso

CNR, IRPI, Padova, Italy

ABSTRACT: Primary flash flood data for seven different hydrometeorological regions within Europe has
been collated and analysed. Selection rules were developed to focus the data collation process and findings
were recorded in a standardised template containing sections on the geographic, meteorological, hydrological
and hydraulic aspects of each flood. The inventory includes over 500 flood events which have been refined for
inter-comparison. The analysis of the data shows that flash floods are most common in the autumn months in
the Mediterranean region and in the summer months in the inland continental region. It was also found that
flash floods are more extreme in the Mediterranean region than the inland continental region. The data sets provide the first step in the European Flash Flood database, which is being developed by the HYDRATE project.
The work presented here represents some of the first outputs from this project.

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1
1.1

INTRODUCTION
Overview

Flash flooding can cause severe damage to buildings

and infrastructure and pose a high risk to people.
This type of flooding, by its nature, generally occurs
within a short time from the causative rainfall event,
thus it is difficult to forecast these events and provide
warnings for communities at risk. HYDRATE (http://
www.hydrate.tesaf.unipd.it/) is a project funded by the
European Commission, which is aiming to improve
and develop techniques for flash flood forecasting.
This paper reports the results of Work Package 1
(WP1) of the project, which is related to the collation
of primary data on previous flash floods. The work
on collating flash flood data was brought about from
a perception that there were limited records on flash
flood events and limited accessibility to those that did
exist. These problems can be attributed to the lack of
gauged records for flash flood events (due to events
occurring in ungauged catchments or gauge equipment
breaking during events), lack of centralised national or
international repositories for data and limited translation of reports from the language of the country into
English for access for international researchers.
1.2

Study regions

To address this apparent gap in availability of centrally stored, high quality data and with the aim of
supporting research on risk assessment and flash
flood forecasting, a data base has been developed
that collates flash flood data from the seven European
hydrometeorological regions listed below, and could
be extended in the future to other areas.
Catalonia, Spain, Mediterranean region
Cevennes-Vivarais, France, Mediterranean region
Italian Alps and Ligury, Alpine Mediterranean and
Mediterranean region
Slovakia, Inland Continental region
Crete, Greece, Mediterranean region
Romania, Inland Continental region
Austria, Inland Continental region
The following sections outline the data collation
methods, describe the database and discuss the initial
analysis of the data. The data that has been collated
provides a useful and easily accessible resource to
researchers.
2
2.1

DATA COLLATION METHODS

Selection rules

The methodological approach for the collation

of this primary data on past flash floods was to

develop selection rules to establish which flood

events would be included in the data set. The selection rules were specified with the aim of ensuring
comprehensive and consistent approaches to data
collection so that valid comparisons could be made
between the data for each region. The selection
rules are concerned with the spatial and temporal
coverage of events as well as the appropriate identification of a flash flood event over other types
of flood events. A comprehensive regional data
set was defined as including (i) an even distribution of events over a specified time period and (ii)
the largest floods for all watersheds of a given area
within the region. The data sets for each region are
consistent with each other when these criteria are
achieved. Conclusions based on inter-comparisons
of data sets which are not consistent are associated
with higher uncertainty.
Given this rationale, data was collected in two
phases; an initial phase to collect all information possible (within the selection rules criteria) and a second
phase to refine the data set for each region to a specified number of extreme events for inter-comparison
of data sets. The selection rules for Phase 1 data
collation were to record information on events that
occurred between 1946 and 2007 on watersheds of an
area of less than 500 km2. The timeframe was selected
based on the hypotheses that firstly, over a 60 year
period it would be likely that several extreme events
would have occurred in each region; and secondly,
that it would be feasible to find hydrometeorological
data from this period but that extending the record to
earlier dates may not be possible for most regions.
The area criterion was selected with some thought
to evaluating the exhaustiveness of the spatial coverage of the data sets. If it is considered that a comprehensive data set includes floods in all watersheds of
a given area for a region, the data collation exercise
becomes more rigorous and the goal less attainable
the smaller the area criterion is. Likewise, it is possible that the larger the area criterion, the more likely
it is that data collection will favour large catchments
and lack information on smaller catchments. Flash
floods are not often recorded by hydrometric networks, because the small watersheds are not gauged
and because the gauging stations do not perform well
for large discharges. The development of the flash
flood catalogue has, however, aimed to provide a
comprehensive inventory of flash floods in ungauged
as well as gauged watersheds throughout each hydrometeorological region.
The data sets were then refined in Phase 2, selecting the most extreme events by identifying those
events which are closest to the envelope curve for the
region. An envelope curve is a plot of watershed area
against specific discharge and provides an effective
graphical summary of experience of extreme floods

1578

for a given region. The 30 events with the highest

pseudo specific peak discharge were selected for each
region. Several Phase 1 data sets contained multiple
records for the same event, distinguishing different
peak discharge estimates at different locations within
the catchment. In the Phase 2 rationalisation of data
sets to 30 events, it was specified that no more than
two records within the set of 30 should be of the same
flood event.
Implicit within this selection process is that the
floods being selected are flash floods. The hypothesis
was made that the most extreme floods in watersheds
of an area of less than 500 km2 are created by short
duration storms (i.e. less than 24 hours) to which the
watershed responds rapidly, which is not the case for
larger watersheds where the most extreme floods are
not always induced by storms. In this research then,
extreme flood events induced by severe stationary
storms have been considered as flash floods. This
relatively broad definition includes almost all the
past events reported as flash floods in Europe, except
dam break floods. The watershed area criterion was
relaxed for particular events in France, Spain and
Austria, which occurred on watersheds of a larger
area but that are widely recognised by hydrologists
as flash floods.
2.2

Data sources and quality

Data was collated using a standardised template

containing sections on geographic, meteorological,
hydrological and hydraulic data, as well as information on damages and casualties that were caused by
the flood. For each hydrometeorological region there
were different sources of data depending on the organisational frameworks of each country. In France, for
example, government departments responsible for the
environment and flood warning as well as the electricity company EDF have hydrometric networks and
can provide discharge data. Due to the limitations of
gauge data for extreme discharges, however, the flash
flood discharge estimates more frequently come from
specific hydraulic studies for reconstructing extreme
events. The local technical services of the government department for infrastructure collate these
hydraulic studies. The origin of the data for Spain,
Greece and Italy, as for France, is more frequently
from hydraulic studies that have made a particular
effort to reconstruct the peak discharge for an event.
In contrast, the discharge estimates for Austria, Slovakia and Romania are generally from hydrometric
records. The hydrometeorological observatories for
Romania and Slovakia have collated flash flood data
by searching the Hydrological Yearbooks for gauging
stations which are administered by government Water
Authorities in Romania and the Hydrometeorological
Institute in Slovakia.

An important part of the collation of the

inventory of extreme flash floods was the verification of the quality of the data. Where there
was uncertainty regarding the accuracy of watershed area in original sources of information, this
was checked in GIS. The peak discharge figures
were checked firstly by comparison with other
events in the region and it was on this basis that
the event on the Rub Torrent in Catalonia in 1962
was thought to be an over-estimate, since the specific peak discharge would have been 72 m3/s/km2,
which is considerably higher than the next largest specific peak discharge for the region, which
was 26 m3/s/km2 on the Ars Torrent in 1996. The
1962 event has therefore been removed from the
analyses of the data sets. Secondly, the peak discharge figures were checked, where possible, by
comparing the values with a basic calculation of
runoff given the event precipitation accumulations. In addition to these general quality checks,
each hydrometeorological observatory carried out
its own particular verification of the accuracy of
the data. In Slovakia, the evaluation of the flood
peak discharges was based on rating curves and
discharge balance. Rating curves for all gauging stations are regularly updated based on direct
discharge measurements at each station which are
carried out four to six times a year. Evaluation of
discharge data through the rating curves is then
corrected by the dischargewater volume balance
for each sub-catchment, as well as by comparison
with the operation of reservoirs etc.

3 THE DATABASE
3.1

Overview

The final data sets include 578 flood event records

in seven European regions, which have been refined
to 150 extreme events (see Table 1) for which full
data templates have been completed where possible.
The data sets provide the first step in the European
Flash Flood database, which is being developed by
the HYDRATE project.
Not all of the data sets selected in Phase 2 meet the
target number of records of 30. The data sets for Spain
and Greece are small so it is difficult to draw generalisations about floods in these regions or make comparisons with other data sets. The data set for Austria
is also below the target of 30 records so we can not
have high confidence in comparisons; however, with
17 records it is possible for some conclusions to be
drawn. The data sets for France, Italy, Slovakia and
Romania are consistent and comprehensive in terms
of the number of events since they satisfy the criteria
of 30 records.

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2005

1995

1990

1985

1975

1980

1970

2000

2005

2000

1995

1990

1985

Considering the spread of records for each region

throughout the 1946 to 2007 time period, it is observed
that not all data sets provide a comprehensive view
of floods over the entire period. Data in Greece and
Spain is limited due to the sparseness of records. The
data set for Italy starts in 1968 and contains events
in each decade. The data set for Slovakia contains
events from 1995 onwards (see Figure 1). It is due to
the non-availability of data before 1995, rather than
the non-occurrence of flood events, that no events are
recorded in the database before this date. For Romania,
the analysis of occurrence of events throughout the 60
year time period shows that events have been recorded
only from 1979 onwards and there are several years
with more than two events. The earliest events in the
Austrian data set are in 1987, however, the records are
not evenly spread throughout the following years as
most events occur between 1997 and 2005. The data
set for France is the only one that includes events
throughout the 60 year time period (see Figure 2).
Given that the data catalogue is not consistent with
regard to the time period covered, conclusions must
take into account this limitation of the data.
As described in the previous section, the data for
each hydrometeorological region are from different sources and associated with different uncertainties depending on the quality checks and validation
processes that have been carried out on the data.
There are arguably significant differences between
the data sets which rely on gauged data and those
based on specific hydraulic studies, since hydrometric networks often do not capture the most extreme
floods which happen in small watersheds. This factor highlights an inconsistency in the data sets which
should be taken into account when comparing the
data. It is difficult to assess the success of achieving
the objective of collating data on the largest floods
in each region and thus whether the itineraries are

10
8
6
4
2
0
1980

Consistency and comprehensiveness

1950

3.2

Figure 1. Dates of floods in the Slovakian data set.

1975

4
30
17

Year

1970

21
152
34

1960

Greece
Romania
Austria

0
1965

30
30
30

1965

236
73
52

1955

1960

10

1950

Catalonia, Spain
CevennesVivarais, France
Northern Italy
Slovakia

10

1955

Number of events:
Phase 1 selection

Number of
events: Phase
2 selection

Number of events

Region

Number of events

Table 1. Number of flash flood events listed in the

HYDRATE data base for each hydrometeorological region.

Year
Figure 2.

Dates of floods in the French data set.

comprehensive in this regard. It is possible that the

larger data sets from the first phase of data collation
had a higher chance of including the most extreme
events, however even the smaller data sets are arguably likely to include the most extreme events as well
as it is generally the most significant floods that are
documented and remembered.
4 ANALYSIS
4.1

Overview

Initial analyses of the data sets have been carried out

to investigate the spatial patterns of flash flood occurrences in Europe. Despite the variability in the quality
of each data set resulting in limitations for comparing
the data, there are some general patterns that can be
observed.
4.2

Catchment area

The watershed areas of the records in each inventory

have been compared to investigate whether there are
any patterns in the watershed sizes that experience
flash floods over Europe. The first observation to

1580

remark upon is that for Spain, France and Austria, there

are records within the inventory that are for watersheds greater than the 500 km selection criterion for
identifying flash floods, but that have been included
based on the general recognition of hydrologists that
they were indeed flash floods. The one event of such
nature in Austria was on the 716 km Schwarze watershed in July 1997. In France (see Figure 3) and Spain
there are several records for watersheds greater than
500 km and some even greater than 2000 km. These
observations arguably indicate that there are climatic
and physiographic characteristics particular to France
and Spain which facilitate the occurrence of extreme
floods over significantly larger catchment areas than
seems possible in other regions of Europe. Another
interesting observation is that there are nearly twice
as many records for watersheds of less than 20 km
in Romania (see Figure 4) and Slovakia as there are
in the other regions, which suggests that the reliance
upon gauging station data has not prevented the collation of data from small catchments.

most frequently occur in AugustNovember, with

peaks in September and October (see Figures 5
and 6). There were also a relatively high number
of records in June in Italy. In contrast, the floods
in Romania and Slovakia occur most frequently
in the summer months, with the peak in July (see
Figure 7). In Austria (see Figure 8) there are records
in May to September and also in December, however
there is a very strong peak in occurrence of events
in August. The few records for Greece are spread
through autumn and winter. This difference in the
seasonality of flash floods in each region reflects
the fact that there are different weather systems
that cause flash floods in the Mediterranean region
compared to the inland continental region. The data
seems to support the hypothesis that extreme events
in the Mediterranean region generally occur in the
autumn months whereas flash floods in the inland
continental region are more likely to occur in the
summer months.
Flood magnitude

4.4
Flood seasonality

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

20

Number of events

15
10

Catchment area of flood records for France.

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

December

October

November

August

20
15
10

Catchment area of flood records for Romania.

December

October

August

November

Month

September

July

May

June

April

2000+

0
March

101 500 500

2000
Catchment Area (km)

5
January

0 - 20 21 - 100

Figure 4.

July

Figure 5. Seasonal occurrence of flash floods in France.

Number of events

Number of events

Figure 3.

Month

September

Catchment Area (km)

May

2000+

June

500 2000

April

101 500

March

21 - 100

0
January

0 - 20

5
February

Number of events

The seasonality of the floods in each inventory has

been examined. Floods in Spain, France and Italy

The magnitudes of extreme floods in each region have

been compared by looking at the envelope curves and
by evaluating specific discharge and pseudo specific

February

4.3

Figure 6. Seasonal occurrence of flash floods in Italy.

1581

discharge. The envelope curves have been plotted

using the formula:

Number of events

20
15

Qs = aA

10
5

Figure 7.

December

October

November

September

July

August

June

May

April

March

January

February

Month

Number of events

(1)

Here Qs is the specific discharge in [m /s/km ],

[m3/s/km2] is a coefficient indicating the specific
discharge theoretically associated to a unit area of
the basin, A [km2] is the catchment area and is
the specific peak flow scaling exponent. A value of
= 0.4 has been estimated based on the French data
set through a linear regression on the log-log plot.
The same value has also been applied to calculate
the envelope curves for the other regional samples.
Figure 9 shows the envelope curves (which plot as
straight lines on a log-log plot) for each regional
inventory and it can be noted that there are two groups
of curves; the curves for Italy, France and Spain are
higher than the curves for Romania, Slovakia, Austria
and Greece. If we discount the Greek curve due to
lack of data, then the resulting conclusion is that the
most extreme floods in the Mediterranean regions are
greater in magnitude than the most extreme floods in
the Inland Continental regions, since it is the most
extreme floods in a region that define the envelope
curve.
As shown in Figure 10, a comparison of the data from
this inventory with data from other studies of floods all
over the world (Costa, 1987; Rodier & Roche, 1984;
3

Seasonal occurrence of flash floods in Slovakia.

20
15
10
5
December

November

October

September

Month

August

July

June

May

April

March

February

January

Figure 8.

Seasonal occurrence of flash floods in Austria.

Figure 9.

Envelope curves for the flash floods in each HYDRATE region.

1582

Figure 10.

Envelope curves for the HYDRATE data and the data on world floods from literature.

Pard, 1961; Alcoverro et al., 1999 and Mimikou,

1984), the world envelope curve is higher than the
envelope curve for the HYDRATE data. Looking
specifically at the events for catchments smaller than
100 km, however, we see that there are few events in
the other inventories that exceed the HYDRATE envelope curve. We can therefore say that extreme events
in the Mediterranean are among the most extreme in
the world for small catchments.
Analysis of the specific discharge and pseudo
specific discharge of each record in the inventory is
useful for understanding whether the envelope curves
are characteristic of the complete data sets or whether
they represent just a small proportion of events which
are very extreme. Specific discharge is calculated by
the formula
Qs = Q A

(2)

where Qs is the specific discharge in [m /s/km ], Q

is the peak discharge [m3/s] and A [km] is the catchment area to the section where the peak discharge has
been estimated. Pseudo specific discharge is calculated by the formula
3

Q ps = Q A

0.6

(3)

where Qps is the specific discharge in [m /s/km ].

The exponent 0.6 was selected based on the envelope
3

2^0.6

curve calculation and has the effect of reducing the

influence of catchment area, thus pseudo specific discharge becomes quite a useful index for comparing
the floods on various different catchment areas, as
with this inventory.
The resulting atlases of specific discharge and
pseudo specific discharge are given in Figures 11 and
12. There are clusters of events in the highest specific
discharge category in southern France and northwestern Italy and also a few records in this category
in Catalonia, eastern Slovakia and western Romania.
Records in Austria are predominantly in the lowest
specific discharge category (less than 2 m3/s/km2).
The contrast between the regions is starker if we
look at the pseudo specific discharge atlas. There are
clusters of records in southern France, Catalonia and
north-western Italy that are in the highest two categories of pseudo specific discharge (greater than 75 m3/
s/km2^0.6). These indicate floods where the discharges
were extreme. The only two records with a pseudo
specific discharge greater than 100 m3/s/km2^0.6 is
in north-western Italy, where the event peak discharges were estimated as 2050 m3/s and 2250 m3/s
for catchments of 110 km and 170 km respectively.
The pseudo specific discharges in Austria, Slovakia
and Romania are in the lower magnitude categories.
These analyses indicate, again, that flash floods in the
Mediterranean region appear to be more extreme than
flash floods in the inland continental region.

1583

Peak Specific Discharge Qs (m3/s/km)

>8
6-8
4-6
2-4
0-2

Figure 11.

Peak specific discharge atlas of flash floods in the HYDRATE hydrometeorological regions.

Pseduo Specific Discharge (m3/s/km^0.6)

>100
75 - 100
50 - 75
25 - 50
0 - 25

Figure 12.

Peak specific discharge atlas of flash floods in the HYDRATE hydrometeorological region.

1584

CONCLUSIONS

Flash flood data from seven hydrometeorological

regions in Europe have been collated. The data sets
provide a step towards a European Flash Flood
database. Events have been selected that occurred
between 1946 and 2007 on watersheds of an area
less than 500 km2. An inventory of over 500 flood
records has been refined to 150, to improve the consistency of the data sets of each region and support
inter-comparisons.
The main conclusions from the initial analyses
of the flash flood inventory relate to the spatial and
seasonal characteristics as well as the magnitude of
the events. It has been observed that despite the focus
of research on watersheds less than 500 km, there
are several events in France and Spain which have
occurred at a larger scale, sometimes of watershed
over 2000 km. The seasonal differences between the
regional inventories indicate that in the Mediterranean region, flash floods occur in the autumn and in
the inner continental region, they occur in the summer. The analysis of the magnitude of floods in the
inventory shows that the most extreme events in the
Mediterranean region are more severe than the most
extreme events in the inner continental region.
The data catalogue may be developed further by
extending the inventories within the existing regions

and also by including other countries within the data

base. With the introduction of the European Floods
Directive in 2007 requiring EU member states to have
prepared flood risk maps by 2013, there is likely to
be an increase in efforts to research and document
historic floods as part of the work done to meet the
Directive.
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Alcoverro, J., Corominas, J. and Gmez, M. (1999) The Barranco de Ars flood of 7 August 1996 (Biescas, Central
Pyrenees, Spain). Engineering Geology, 51, 237255.
Barredo, J. I. (2007) Major flood disasters in Europe : 1950
2005. Natural Hazards, 42, 125148.
Costa, J. E. (1987) Hydraulics and basin morphometry of the
largest flash floods in the conterminous United States.
Journal of Hydrology, 93, 313338.
Mimikou (1984) Envelope curves for extreme flood
events in north-western and western Greece. Journal of
Hydrology, 67, 5566.
Pard, M. (1961) Sur la puissance des crues en diverses
parties du monde. Geographica, 8, 1293.
Rodier, J. A. and Roche, M. (1984) World catalogue of
maximum observed floods. IASH Publication number
143, IASH Press.

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