Modelling (flash) floods in a Dutch lowland catchment
Publication date
2012-04-22
Authors
Brauer, C.C.
Teuling, A.J.
Overeem, A.
Velde, Y. van der
Hazenberg, P.
Warmerdam, P.M.M.
Kloosterman, P.
Uijlenhoet, R.
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(c) UU Universiteit Utrecht, 2012
Abstract
On 26 August 2010 the eastern part of The Netherlands and the bordering part of Germany were struck by a series
of rainfall events.We investigated the unprecedented flash flood triggered by this exceptionally heavy rainfall event
(return period > 1000 years) in the 6.5 km2 Hupsel Brook catchment, which has been the experimental watershed
employed by Wageningen University since the 1960s. This study improved our understanding of the dynamics of
such lowland flash floods and the results have been published in HESS (Brauer et al., 2011). During this extreme
event some thresholds became apparent that do not play a role during average conditions and are not incorporated
in rainfall-runoff models.
We present a detailed analysis of this extreme event, focusing on (1) the measured soil moisture, groundwater and
discharge response of the catchment, (2) the thresholds we found, (3) the manner in which these processes and
thresholds are incorporated in some well-known conceptual hydrological models and (4) how well these models
are able to simulate the rainfall-runoff processes during the 2010 flash flood.