Design flood estimation in a warming climate – issues, challenges and the way ahead

Abstract

Flooding is the biggest and severest natural disaster faced by humanity year after year worldwide. In spite of advances in technology, data availability and computing power, the loss of life and property from flooding continues unabated. To add to this is the new challenge of climate change, a challenge that forces us to ask whether existing norms and approaches for estimating the design flood still apply in this warming world. This paper reflects on the issue of design flood estimation in a warming world, addressing questions such as - why is it that floods are changing - and what is it we need to do to estimate the changed values to both secure existing and plan new water infrastructure with. The paper poses a lot of questions, and lays down some thoughts on what could be done to prepare us better to reduce miscalculated risks in our designed infrastructure as we head deeper into this new century.