Regional analysis of multivariate compound coastal flooding potential around Europe and environs: sensitivity analysis and spatial patterns

摘要

In coastal regions, floods can arise through a combination of multipledrivers, including direct surface run-off, river discharge, storm surge, andwaves. In this study, we analyse compound flood potential in Europe andenvirons caused by these four main flooding sources using state-of-the-artdatabases with coherent forcing (i.e. ERA5). First, we analyse thesensitivity of the compound flooding potential to several factors: (1)sampling method, (2) time window to select the concurrent event of theconditioned driver, (3) dependence metrics, and (4) wave-driven sea leveldefinition. We observe higher correlation coefficients using annual maximathan peaks over threshold. Regarding the other factors, our results showsimilar spatial distributions of the compound flooding potential. Second, thedependence between the pairs of drivers using the Kendall rank correlationcoefficient and the joint occurrence are synthesized for coherent patterns ofcompound flooding potential using a clustering technique. This quantitativemulti-driver assessment not only distinguishes where overall compound floodingpotential is the highest, but also discriminates which driver combinations aremore likely to contribute to compound flooding. We identify that hotspots ofcompound flooding potential are located along the southern coast of the NorthAtlantic Ocean and the northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.