2023 Monitoring Report on the German Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change read more
The bar chart WW-I-5 ‘Peak discharge values in watercourses’ contains a biaxial diagram. The bar chart shows for the years 1961 to 2021 – separately for the hydrological winter half-year (1st November of the previous year to 30th April) and the hydrological summer half-year (1st May to 31st October) – on one hand the highest peak discharge at selected watercourse gauges as a multiple of MHQ. On the other hand, the chart shows the proportion of the levels measured at the gauging stations concerned, categorised as medium flood (factor 1.5 to less than factor 2 times MHQ), great flood (factor 2 to less than factor 2.5 MHQ) as well as very great flood (factor 2.5 MHQ and higher). Peak discharge events occur above all in hydrological summer half-years; they can reach as much as factor 8 to 9 times MHQ. The highest value occurred in the summer of 2002 with almost a factor of 10 times the MHQ. Only the proportion of levels measured in a medium flood in the hydrological summer half-year decreased significantly between 1961 and 2021.
