A simple and robust approach for adapting design storms to assess climate-induced changes in flash flood hazard

Abstract

Hydrologists and civil engineers often use design storms to assess flash flood hazards in urban, rural, and mountainous catchments. These synthetic storms are not representations of real extreme rainfall events, but rather simplified versions parameterized to mimic extreme precipitation statistics often obtained from intensity–duration–frequency (IDF) curves. To construct design storms for the future climate, it is thus necessary first to recalculate IDF curves to represent rainfall under warmer conditions. We propose a framework for adjusting IDF curves and design storms to future climate conditions using the TENAX model, a novel statistical approach that can provide future short-duration precipitation return levels based on projected temperature changes. For most applications, information from climate models at the daily scale can be used to construct design storms at the sub-hourly scale without any downscaling or bias adjustment. Our approach is illustrated through a re-parameterization of the Chicago Design Storm (CDS) in the context of climate change. As a case study demonstration, we apply the TENAX model to data from the city of Zurich to calculate changes in the historical IDF curve for durations ranging from 10 min to 3 h. We then construct synthetic 100-year return period design storms based on the CDS for present and future climates and use the CAFlood model to produce flood inundation maps to assess changes in flood hazard. The codes for adapting design storms to climate change are simple to implement, easily applicable by practitioners, and made freely available.