Multidisciplinary reconstruction of the May 1853 flood episode
- 1University of Lleida, ETSEA, Environment and Soil Sciences, Lleida, Spain (cbalasch@macs.udl.cat)
- 2Centre Excursionista de Lleida, Lleida, Spain (feliu@izard.cat)
- 3Facultat de Ciències de la Terra. Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain (jaucalpor@gmail.com)
- 4Fluvial Dynamics Research Group (RIUS), University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain (jotume@gmail.com)
- 5Department of Physics, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain (david.pino@upc.edu)
- 6IDAEA-CSIC, Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research, Spanish Research Council, Barcelona, Spain (mariano.barriendos@idaea.csic.es)
- 7Department of Regional Geographical Analysis and Physical Geography, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain (josep.barriendos@gmail.com)
Climate variability conditioned by the effects of climate change justifies the study of historical periods in order to identify and characterise episodes of high severity and low frequency. The increase in the irregularity of the rainfall regime in some regions justifies the study of these events for a better assessment of their presence in the immediate future. In this regard, the study of extreme hydrometeorological episodes that happen in unusual seasons of the year for these extreme episodes is of particular interest.
One of these unusual episodes was the torrential rainfall and floods of May 1853 in Catalonia (NE Iberian Peninsula). The whole month of May 1853 is a unique hydrometeorological anomaly, being the second most rainy month of May in the whole instrumental series of precipitation of the city of Barcelona (period 1786-2022).
This work reconstructs this episode of heavy rainfall and floods using a multidisciplinary approach. Old instrumental meteorological data are used to obtain the daily pluviometric behaviour in Barcelona. Surface atmospheric pressure data from different points of Western Europe allow its synoptic description.
Historical information allows the identification of the different river overflow points and the floods caused by this episode. These points are represented cartographically together with the documented impacts on infrastructures. For this episode, there are 38 cases with historical information on impacts caused by floods or overflows. These occurred in eight different river basins which are included in the hydrographic demarcations of the Ebro River and the Catalan Coastal Basins.
In order to appreciate the magnitude of the event, a limnimark (or floodmark) located in Tres Ponts Canyon on the Segre River is used. This record enables us to assimilate the episode with the most severe episode measured on the Segre River, one of the main tributaries of the Ebro River, in November 1982, with 1900 m3/s. This confirms the magnitude of the event of 1853, which is one of the most severe episodes of the lower Ebro basin for the last 500 years.
How to cite: Balasch, J. C., Izard, F., Calvet, J., Tuset, J., Pino, D., Barriendos, M., and Barriendos, J.: Multidisciplinary reconstruction of the May 1853 flood episode, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-6087, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-6087, 2023.
