Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

The changing nature of flooding across the central United States

Abstract

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, flooding has taken a devastating societal and economic toll on the central United States, contributing to dozens of fatalities and causing billions of dollars in damage1,2. As a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture (the Clausius–Clapeyron relation), a pronounced increase in intense rainfall events is included in models of future climate3. Therefore, it is crucial to examine whether the magnitude and/or frequency of flood events is remaining constant or has been changing over recent decades. If either or both of these attributes have changed over time, it is imperative that we understand the underlying mechanisms that are responsible. Here, we show that while observational records (774 stream gauge stations) from the central United States present limited evidence of significant changes in the magnitude of floodpeaks, strong evidence points to an increasing frequency of flooding. These changes in flood hydrology result from changes in both seasonal rainfall and temperature across this region.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Trends in the magnitude and frequency of flood events at the annual scale.
Figure 2: Trends in the magnitude and frequency of flood events at the seasonal scale.
Figure 3: Trends in the magnitude and frequency of heavy rainfall events at the annual scale.
Figure 4: Trends in the magnitude and frequency of heavy rainfall events at the seasonal scale.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Downton, M. W., Miller, J. Z. B. & Pielke Jr, R. A. Reanalysis of US National Weather Service flood loss database. Nat. Hazards Rev. 6, 13–22 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Xiao, Y., Wan, J. & Hewings, G. J. D. Flooding and the Midwest economy: Assessing the Midwest floods of 1993 and 2008. GeoJournal 78, 245–258 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Sillmann, J., Kharin, V. V., Zwiers, F. W., Zhang, X. & Bronaugh, D. Climate extremes indices in the CMIP5 multimodel ensemble: Part 2. Future climate projections. J. Geophys. Res. 118, 2473–2493 (2013).

    Google Scholar 

  4. IPCC Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) 1535 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Lins, H. F. & Slack, J. R. Seasonal and regional characteristics of US streamflow trends in the United States from 1940 to 1999. Phys. Geogr. 26, 489–501 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Novotny, E. V. & Stefan, H. G. Stream flow in Minnesota: Indicator of climate change. J. Hydrol. 334, 319–333 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Villarini, G., Serinaldi, F., Smith, J. A. & Krajewski, W. F. On the stationarity of annual flood peaks in the continental United States during the 20th century. Wat. Resour. Res. 45, W08417 (2009).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Villarini, G., Smith, J. A., Baeck, M. L. & Krajewski, W. F. Examining flood frequency distributions in the Midwest US. J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 47, 447–463 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Schilling, K. E. & Libra, R. D. Increased baseflow in Iowa over the second half of the 20th century. J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 39, 851–860 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Peterson, T. C. et al. Monitoring and understanding changes in heat waves, cold waves, floods, and droughts in the United States: State of knowledge. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 94, 821–834 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Hirsch, R. M. & Ryberg, K. R. Has the magnitude of floods across the USA changed with global CO2 levels? Hydrol. Sci. J. 57, 1–9 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Pryor, S. C., Howe, J. A. & Kunkel, K. E. How spatially coherent and statistically robust are temporal changes in extreme precipitation in the contiguous USA? Int. J. Climatol. 29, 31–45 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Villarini, G. et al. On the frequency of heavy rainfall for the Midwest of the United States. J. Hydrol. 400, 103–120 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Villarini, G., Smith, J. A. & Vecchi, G. A. Changing frequency of heavy rainfall over the central United States. J. Clim. 26, 351–357 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Rasmussen, T. J. & Perry, C. A. Trends in Peak Flows of Selected Streams in Kansas Water Resources Investigations Report No. 01-4203, 62 (USGS, 2001).

    Google Scholar 

  16. Olsen, J. R., Stedinger, J. R., Matalas, N. C. & Stakhiv, E. Z. Climate variability and flood frequency estimation for the Upper Mississippi and Lower Missouri. J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 35, 1509–1523 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Pederson, G. T. et al. Climatic controls on the snowmelt hydrology of the Northern Rocky Mountains. J. Clim. 24, 1666–1687 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Lavers, D. A. & Villarini, G. Atmospheric rivers and flooding over the central United States. J. Clim. 26, 7829–7836 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Ryberg, K. R., Lin, W. & Vecchia, A. V. Impact of climate variability on runoff in the North-Central United States. J. Hydrol. Eng. 19, 148–158 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Yang, L. et al. Urbanization and climate change: An examination of nonstationarities in urban flooding. J. Hydrometeorol. 14, 1791–1809 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Villarini, G. & Strong, A. Roles of climate and agricultural practices in discharge changes in an agricultural watershed in Iowa. Agr. Ecosyst. Environ. 188, 204–211 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Hegerl, G. & Zwiers, F. Use of models in detection and attribution of climate change. WIREs Clim. Change 2, 570–591 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Hirsch, R. M. A perspective on nonstationarity and water management. J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 47, 436–446 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Higgins, R. W., Shi, W., Yarosh, E. & Joyce, R. Improved United States Precipitation Quality Control System and Analysis (NCEP/Climate Prediction Center Atlas, 2000).

    Google Scholar 

  25. Willmott, C. J. & Robeson, S. M. Climatologically aided interpolation (CAI) of terrestrial air temperature. Int. J. Climatol. 15, 221–229 (1995).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Lombard, F. Rank tests for changepoint problems. Biometrika 74, 615–624 (1987).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Muggeo, V. M. R. Estimating regression models with unknown break-points. Stat. Med. 22, 3055–3071 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support by the USACE Institute for Water Resources, the Iowa Flood Center, and IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering. This material is based in part on work supported by the National Science Foundation under CAREER Grant AGS-1349827 (G.V.). We gratefully acknowledge R. Denniston’s, E. Scoccimarro’s, W. Krajewski’s and J. Smith’s guidance and suggestions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

G.V. conceived and designed the experiments; I.M. performed the experiments and analysed the data; I.M. and G.V. co-authored the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gabriele Villarini.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mallakpour, I., Villarini, G. The changing nature of flooding across the central United States. Nature Clim Change 5, 250–254 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2516

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2516

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing