Assessment of climate change impact on the annual maximum flood in an urban river in Dublin, Ireland

Abstract

Hydrological modelling to address the problem of flood risk corresponding to climate change can play an important role in water resources management. This paper describes the potential impact of climate change on an urban river catchment using a physically based hydrological model called Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The study area considered is the Dodder River basin located in the southern part of Dublin, the capital city of Ireland. Climate projections from three regional climate models and two representative concentration pathways (RPC 4.5 and RCP 8.5) were used to evaluate the impact of flooding corresponding to different climate change scenarios. Annual maximum flow (AMF) is generated by combining the bias-corrected climate projections with the calibrated and validated SWAT model to understand the projected changes in flood patterns for the year 2021–2100. The expected changes in flood quantiles were estimated using a generalised extreme value distribution. The results predicted up to 12% and 16% increase in flood quantiles corresponding to 50 years and 100 years return periods. Based on the flood quantiles, flood inundation maps were developed for the study area.