Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 4807–4823, 2014 www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/18/4807/2014/ doi:10.5194/hess-18-4807-2014 © Author(s) 2014. CC Attribution 3.0 License. The “Prediflood” database of historical floods in Catalonia (NE Iberian Peninsula) AD 1035–2013, and its potential applications in flood analysis M. Barriendos1,2, J. L. Ruiz-Bellet3, J. Tuset4, J. Mazón5, J. C. Balasch3, D. Pino5,6, and J. L. Ayala7 1Catalan Institute of Climate Sciences, Barcelona, Spain 2Department of Modern History, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 3Department of Environment and Soil Sciences, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain 4RIUS Fluvial Dynamics Research Group, Forest Science Centre of Catalonia, Solsona, Spain 5Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech, Barcelona, Spain 6Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC-UPC), Barcelona, Spain 7Arxiu del Comú, Departament de Cultura i Turisme, Comú d’Andorra, Andorra la Vella, Andorra Correspondence to: M. Barriendos (
[email protected]) Received: 7 May 2014 – Published in Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss.: 11 July 2014 Revised: 10 October 2014 – Accepted: 18 October 2014 – Published: 4 December 2014 Abstract. “Prediflood” is a database of historical floods that 2100, models estimate a 15 % decrease in total rain depth occurred in Catalonia (NE Iberian Peninsula), between the but, at the same time, a 15–30 % increase in the number of 11th century and the 21st century. More than 2700 flood days with heavy precipitation (Barrera and Cunillera, 2011). cases are catalogued, and more than 1100 flood events. This In central Europe, torrential precipitation will also increase database contains information acquired under modern histo- in the near future, although this cannot be assured to cause riographical criteria and it is, therefore, suitable for use in an increase in river flows, due to the short length of the data multidisciplinary flood analysis techniques, such as meteo- series (IPCC, 2014; Kovats and Valentini, 2014).