Flood risk assessment in estuaries. The importance of historical data integration in predictive tools development

Abstract

Floods in estuaries can be driven by different forcing mechanisms from ocean and inland sources and are often aggravated in urban areas by insufficient drainage conditions. Sea - level rise and extreme climate events can exacerbate wat er levels inside the estuaries. D evelopments are being made to reduce the uncertainty of forecast tools in order to provide reliable flood predictions that can support risk assessment and management strategies . The integration of his torical events data analysis in h azard forec asting can contribute to a better knowledge of the dominant flood drivers and to improve the validation of the models . In the present work a data base of historical flood events