Extreme events

Doing flood frequency hydrology in a non-stationary climate

Sergiy Vorogushyn April 3, 2026

Design values for hundred kilometers of flood protection dikes require reassessment considering future climate change. A dike along the Elbe River near the City of Hamburg. Image credit: Sergiy Vorogushyn.

A robust estimation of probabilities of extreme floods is the Holy Grail in flood hydrology in view of limited available observations, variability of climate, and complexity of flood generation processes in catchments. Flood frequency hydrology, spearheaded in the past decades by Ralf Merz and Günter Blöschl, offers a powerful toolbox to enhance the reliability of flood probability estimates by co ...[Read More]

Communicating and Managing Residual Risk with Perfect Storms and Other Counterfactual Stories

Bruno Merz March 26, 2026

The aim of risk management is to prepare society in order to limit loss and damage when an extreme event occurs and to restore the functioning of society afterwards . While current risk management practices are helpful in many regards, they fall short when it comes to unprecedented events. An analysis of event pairs and recent disasters show that societies often fail to cope with events that are l ...[Read More]

HydroTalks: Prof. Sally E. Thompson on ecohydrology, vegetation, climate change and working across continents

Archita Bhattacharyya, Melissa Reidy and Christina Anna Orieschnig February 19, 2026

In episode 7 of the Hydrotalks podcast, our guest was Dr. Sally Thompson (Sally Thompson – the UWA Profiles and Research Repository). She is a Professor at the University of Western Australia, and the Co-Director of the Centre for Water and Spatial Science. Her research spans ecohydrology, surface hydrology, and Critical Zone Science, exploring how vegetation and ecosystems interact with wat ...[Read More]

HydroTalks: Heidi Kreibich about Floods, Human-water Feedbacks, and the IAHS Scientific Decade Panta Rhei

Christina Orieschnig, Melissa Reidy and Archita Bhattacharyya January 22, 2026

For this month’s episode of HydroTalks, we’re thrilled to welcome Heidi Kreibich. She is head of the Section Hydrology at GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences and senior lecturer at the Geography Department of Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin. Heidi is also president of the Natural Hazards division of the EGU and president of the International Commission on Human-Water Feedbacks in the IAHS. In add ...[Read More]