Abstract
Extreme hydrometeorological events that arise from unusually high and low precipitation are characterized by floods and droughts, respectively. In the previous chapter we have discussed unusually low rainfall leading to droughts. Apparently, floods and droughts are weather related phenomena and because of the differences in climate, topography and precipitation, their characteristics, such as magnitudes, duration of occurrence, time of occurrence, frequency of occurrence, number of occurrences, and time interval between occurrences, significantly vary from region to region. The damages caused by these weather events in terms of the loss of life, persons affected, environmental damage, social disruption, and economic losses are all too known. It has been estimated that in the United States, the average annual flood losses is more than four billion dollars and for India, it is of the order of seven billion Indian Rupees. It can, therefore, be said that floods are serious problems in virtually every country of the world. In order to control them and keep damages down to the lowest possible level, their prediction is fundamental. In this chapter we discuss floods and their hydrometeorology for understanding why we have floods?
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Rakhecha, P.R., Singh, V.P. (2009). Floods. In: Applied Hydrometeorology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9844-4_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9844-4_15
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