Using lake sediment archives to improve understanding of flood magnitude and frequency: recent extreme flooding in northwest UK

Chiverrell, R.C.; Sear, D.A.; Warburton, J.; Macdonald, N.; Schillereff, D.N.; Dearing, J.A.; Croudace, I.W.; Brown, J.; Bradley, J.

doi:10.1002/esp.4650

Using lake sediment archives to improve understanding of flood magnitude and frequency: recent extreme flooding in northwest UK

Chiverrell, R.C.; Sear, D.A.; Warburton, J.; Macdonald, N.; Schillereff, D.N.; Dearing, J.A.; Croudace, I.W.; Brown, J.; Bradley, J.

Authors

R.C. Chiverrell

D.A. Sear

Professor Jeff Warburton jeff.warburton@durham.ac.uk
Professor

N. Macdonald

D.N. Schillereff

J.A. Dearing

I.W. Croudace

J. Brown

J. Bradley

Abstract

We present the first quantitative reconstruction of palaeofloods using lake sediments for the UK and show that for a large catchment in NW England the cluster of devastating floods from 1990 to present is without precedent in this 558‐year palaeo‐record. Our approach augments conventional flood magnitude and frequency (FMF) analyses with continuous lake sedimentary data to provide a longer‐term perspective on flood magnitude recurrence probabilities. The 2009 flood, the largest in >558 years, had a recurrence interval larger (1:2,200 year) than revealed by conventional flood estimation using shorter duration gauged single station records (1:1,700 year). Flood‐rich periods are non‐stationary in their correlation with climate indices, but the 1990‐2018 cluster is associated with warmer Northern Hemisphere Temperatures and positive Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Monitored records rarely capture the largest floods and our palaeoflood series shows, for this catchment, such omissions undermine evaluations of future risk. Our approach provides an exemplar of how to derive centennial palaeoflood reconstructions from lakes coupled well with their catchments around the world.

Citation

Chiverrell, R., Sear, D., Warburton, J., Macdonald, N., Schillereff, D., Dearing, J., …Bradley, J. (2019). Using lake sediment archives to improve understanding of flood magnitude and frequency: recent extreme flooding in northwest UK. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 44(12), 2376-2376. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.4650

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	May 9, 2019
Online Publication Date	Jun 25, 2019
Publication Date	Sep 30, 2019
Deposit Date	May 28, 2019
Publicly Available Date	Jul 8, 2019
Journal	Earth Surface Processes and Landforms
Print ISSN	0197-9337
Electronic ISSN	1096-9837
Publisher	British Society for Geomorphology
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	44
Issue	12
Pages	2376-2376
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.4650

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