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Major Midwest (United States) flood risk underestimated by as much as five feet, study finds
https://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/28557.aspx[font face=Serif][font size=5]Major Midwest flood risk underestimated by as much as five feet, study finds[/font]
[font size=4]High-water marks inching higher as global warming makes megafloods more common[/font]
June 29, 2015
By Gerry Everding
[font size=3]As floodwaters surge along major rivers in the midwestern United States, a new study from Washington University in St. Louis suggests federal agencies are underestimating historic 100-year flood levels on these rivers by as much as five feet, a miscalculation that has serious implications for future flood risks, flood insurance and business development in an expanding floodplain.
“This analysis shows that average high-water marks on these river systems are rising about an inch per year — that’s a rate ten times greater than the annual rise in sea levels now occurring due to climate change,” said Robert Criss, PhD, professor of geology in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences and author of the study.
Published this month in an advance online issue of the Journal of Earth Science, the findings are important, Criss said, because many of the nation’s flood-control river levee systems are not engineered to withstand floods that rise much higher than the projected 100-year flood level.
…
In his study, Criss argues that the statistical formulas now used to set federally-recognized official levels for 100-year flood events are grossly inaccurate because they assume conditions are the same as they were many decades ago, when the rivers were relatively untamed and global weather patterns were more consistent.
…[/font][/font]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12583-015-0641-9
[font size=4]High-water marks inching higher as global warming makes megafloods more common[/font]
June 29, 2015
By Gerry Everding
[font size=3]As floodwaters surge along major rivers in the midwestern United States, a new study from Washington University in St. Louis suggests federal agencies are underestimating historic 100-year flood levels on these rivers by as much as five feet, a miscalculation that has serious implications for future flood risks, flood insurance and business development in an expanding floodplain.
“This analysis shows that average high-water marks on these river systems are rising about an inch per year — that’s a rate ten times greater than the annual rise in sea levels now occurring due to climate change,” said Robert Criss, PhD, professor of geology in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences and author of the study.
Published this month in an advance online issue of the Journal of Earth Science, the findings are important, Criss said, because many of the nation’s flood-control river levee systems are not engineered to withstand floods that rise much higher than the projected 100-year flood level.
…
In his study, Criss argues that the statistical formulas now used to set federally-recognized official levels for 100-year flood events are grossly inaccurate because they assume conditions are the same as they were many decades ago, when the rivers were relatively untamed and global weather patterns were more consistent.
…[/font][/font]