Projected Changes in Peak Discharge Across the Contiguous United States

Floods affect many aspects of our lives, and our improved understanding of the processes driving the historical changes in this natural hazard can provide basic information to enhance our preparation and mitigation efforts. Here we analyze thousands of long-term streamgages across the contiguous United States and attribute the changes in flood extremes to precipitation and temperature. We then leverage these physical insights to assess the future changes in flooding using outputs from global climate models part of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6. We find that flood peaks are projected to change across the contiguous United States. This is true even when flood changes are not detected in the more recent decades, highlighting the current needs for incorporating climate change in the future infrastructure designs and management of the water resources.