Decreasing uncertainty in flood frequency analyses by including historic flood events in an efficient bootstrap approach

Bomers, Anouk; Schielen, Ralph M. J.; Hulscher, Suzanne J. M. H.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-1895-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-1895-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-1895-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 8

Research article

|

29 Aug 2019

Research article |

| 29 Aug 2019

Decreasing uncertainty in flood frequency analyses by including historic flood events in an efficient bootstrap approach

Anouk Bomers, Ralph M. J. Schielen, and Suzanne J. M. H. Hulscher

Download

Final revised paper (published on 29 Aug 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 18 Mar 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'Reviewer comments', Elena Volpi, 17 Apr 2019
- AC1: 'Reply to the comments by Elena Volpi', Anouk Bomers, 13 May 2019
RC2: 'Adding uncertainty, other methods seems to be more appropriated', Anonymous Referee #2, 12 May 2019
- AC2: 'Reply to the comments by the anonymous reviewer', Anouk Bomers, 14 Jun 2019
RC3: 'Reviewer Comments', Anonymous Referee #3, 21 May 2019
- AC3: 'Reply to the comments by the anonymous reviewer', Anouk Bomers, 14 Jun 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (22 Jun 2019) by Bruno Merz

Dear Anouk Bomers, Ralph Schielen and Suzanne Hulscher

Thank you for the submission of your very interesting manuscript “Decreasing uncertainty in flood frequency analyses by including historic flood events in an efficient bootstrap approach”.

As you know, three reviewers have provided detailed reviews, which you have replied in thoughtful detail to. The reviewers find your manuscript very valuable, but all of them recommend major revisions. I would like to invite you to submit a revised version of your manuscript.

Would you please also provide an ‘author’s reply’ to the reviewers (feel free to use the same words that you used in what you have already uploaded). Please can you also include a track changes document between the old manuscript and the new one (you can include this as part of your ‘author’s reply’).

In addition to the suggestions from the reviewers, I have the following remarks:
(a) In some cases (e.g. your answers to point 2, 15, 16 of reviewer #1), you give the answer to the specific comment in your response letter, but you do not mention whether you intend to change the manuscript. In general, I think that whenever a reviewer has not understood an issue, the manuscript should be reformulated as there is a good chance that other readers will have problems as well.
(b) Your answer to point 10 of reviewer #1: I am not sure whether your argument that “… the height of the dikes influences the discharge capacity of the Lower Rhine and hence the discharge that can flow towards Lobith…” is completely true. In my past discussions on that issue, several people emphasized that even when the dikes along the Lower Rhine would be overtopped, the water would flow behind the dikes towards the Netherlands, and that the downstream effect of dike overtopping would be much smaller.

I look forward to seeing the next version of your manuscript which I will then send out for further review to the previous reviewers.

Best regards, Bruno Merz

Hide

AR by Anouk Bomers on behalf of the Authors (18 Jul 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (24 Jul 2019) by Bruno Merz

RR by Elena Volpi (31 Jul 2019)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (05 Aug 2019)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (09 Aug 2019) by Bruno Merz

AR by Anouk Bomers on behalf of the Authors (12 Aug 2019) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

Flood frequency curves are usually highly uncertain since they are based on short data sets of measured discharges or weather conditions. To decrease the confidence intervals, an efficient bootstrap method is developed. With this method, the data set of measured discharges of the Rhine river is extended by approximately 600 years. The study shows that historic flood events decrease the confidence interval of the flood frequency curve significantly, specifically in the range of large floods.