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CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND FLOOD FREQUENCY ESTIMATION FOR THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI AND LOWER MISSOURI RIVERS 1
Author(s) -
Olsen J. Rolf,
Stedinger Jery R.,
Matalas Nicholas C.,
Stakhiv Eugene Z.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
jawra journal of the american water resources association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.957
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1752-1688
pISSN - 1093-474X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-1688.1999.tb04234.x
Subject(s) - flood myth , hydrology (agriculture) , pacific decadal oscillation , confluence , floodplain , streamflow , environmental science , geology , climatology , physical geography , drainage basin , geography , el niño southern oscillation , archaeology , geotechnical engineering , cartography , computer science , programming language
This paper considers the distribution of flood flows in the Upper Mississippi, Lower Missouri, and Illinois Rivers and their relationship to climatic indices. Global climate patterns including El Niño/Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the North Atlantic Oscillation explained very little of the variations in flow peaks. However, large and statistically significant upward trends were found in many gauge records along the Upper Mississippi and Missouri Rivers: at Hermann on the Missouri River above the confluence with the Mississippi (p = 2 percent), at Hannibal on the Mississippi River (p < 0.1 percent), at Meredosia on the Illinois River (p = 0.7 percent), and at St. Louis on the Mississippi below the confluence of all three rivers (p = 1 percent). This challenges the traditional assumption that flood series are independent and identically distributed random variables and suggests that flood risk changes over time.