In this paper we focused on the history of floods and extreme flood frequency analysis of the upper Danube River at Bratislava. Firstly, we briefly describe the flood marks found on the Danube River in the region of Bratislava, Slovakia, and provide an account of the floods’ consequences. Secondly, we analyzed the annual maximum discharge series for the period 1876–2012, including the most recent flood of June 2013. Thirdly, we compare the values of T-year design discharge computed with and without incorporating the historic floods (floods of the years 1501, 1682, and 1787 into the 138-year series of annual discharge peaks). There are unfortunately only a few historic flood marks preserved in Bratislava, but there are very important and old marks in neighbouring Hainburg and other Austrian cities upstream to Passau. The calculated T-year maximum discharge of the Danube at Bratislava for the period 1876-2010 without and with historic flood values have been compared. Our analysis showed that without incorporating the historic floods from the years 1501, 1682, and 1787 the 1000-year discharge calculated only with data from the instrumented period 1876- 2013 is 14,188 m3 s -1 , and it is lower compared to the 1000-year discharge of 14,803 m3 s -1 when the three historic floods are included. In general, the T-year discharge is higher throughout the whole spectrum of T-year discharges (10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500-year discharge) when the three historic floods are included. Incorporating historic floods into a time series of maximum annual discharge seems to exert a significant effect on the estimates of low probability floods. This has important implications for flood managements and estimation of flood design discharge.
The problem of understand natural processes as factors that restrict, limit or even jeopardize the interests of human society is currently of great concern. The natural transformation of flood waves is increasingly affected and disturbed by artificial interventions in river basins. The Danube River basin is an area of high economic and water management importance. Channel training can result in changes in the transformation of flood waves and different hydrographic shapes of flood waves compared with the past. The estimation and evolution of the transformation of historical flood waves under recent river conditions is only possible by model simulations. For this purpose a nonlinear reservoir cascade model was constructed. The NLN-Danube nonlinear reservoir river model was used to simulate the transformation of flood waves in four sections of the Danube River from Kienstock (Austria) to Štúrovo (Slovakia) under relatively recent river reach conditions. The model was individually calibrated for two extreme events in August 2002 and June 2013. Some floods that occurred on the Danube during the period of 1991-2002 were used for the validation of the model. The model was used to identify changes in the transformational properties of the Danube channel in the selected river reach for some historical summer floods (1899, 1954 1965 and 1975). Finally, a simulation of flood wave propagation of the most destructive Danube flood of the last millennium (August 1501) is discussed.
The aim of the paper is to study spatial and temporal changes in the magnitude, duration and frequency of high flows in the Danube basin. A hydrological series of the mean daily discharges from 20 gauging stations (operated minimally since 1930) were used for the analysis of changes in the daily discharges. The high flow events were classified into three classes: high flow pulses, small floods, and large floods. For each year and for each class, the means of the peak discharges, the number and duration of events, and the rate of changes of the rising and falling limbs of the waves were determined. The long-term trends of the annual time series obtained were analyzed and statistically evaluated. The long-term high flow changes were found to be different in three individual high flow classes. The duration of the category of high flow pulses is decreasing at 19 stations on the Danube and is statistically significant at the Linz, Vienna, Bratislava and Orsova stations. The frequency of the high flow pulses is increasing in all 20 stations. Also, the rising and falling rates of the high flow pulse category are increasing at the majority of the stations. The long-term trends of the selected characteristics of the small floods are very similar to the trends of the high flow pulses, i.e., the duration of small floods is decreasing, and their mean number per year is increasing. In the category of large floods the changes were not proved.
The main objective of this study is to develop a model procedure for predicting low flows for a large set of gauged basins located in the Rhine-Meuse area. The methodology is primarily based on the analysis of recession curves, river discharges being essentially provided by groundwater flow during drought period. Our objective is to use recession coefficients in order to calibrate base flow predictions coming out from a groundwater reservoir. Problems related to the temporal variability of recession coefficients are discussed. We come to the conclusion that lows flows prediction can be improved by implementing a new groundwater reservoir into the RR model based on our knowledge of low flow processes. and Jednou z požiadaviek Rámcovej smernice o vode (WFD, 2000/60/EC) je analýza trendov a dlhodobá predpoveď vývoja znečistenia povrchových tokov. Pri odhade vývoja znečistenia toku je potrebné brať do úvahy nielen možné zdroje znečistenia, ale je potrebné uvažovať aj s vývojom množstva vody v tokoch a so zvyšovaním teploty tokov v dôsledku očakávanej klimatickej zmeny a zmeny vo využívaní vodných zdrojov. V príspevku je analyzovaný vývoj mesačných koncentrácií vybraných ukazovateľov kvality vody v toku Dunaja v stanici Bratislava (napr. Chl-a, Ca, EC, SO4 2-, Cl- , O2, BSK5, N-celk, PO4-P, NO3-N, NO2-N a pod.) za obdobie r. 1991-2005. Za účelom dlhodobej predpovede koncentrácií každého ukazovateľa kvality vody sme na základe štatistických testov vybrali najlepší autoregresný Box-Jenkinsov model s dvoma regresormi: 1. prietokmi a 2. teplotami vody. Scenáre pre mesačné prietoky a mesačné teploty vody boli vytvorené pre tri stavy: i) priemerné podmienky - medián prietokov a teploty vody; ii) nízke prietoky a vysoké teploty vody; a iii) vysoké prietoky a nízke teploty vody. Tieto scenárové podmienky boli vypočítané z denných údajov z obdobia 1931-2005 ako percentily (1. percentil, medián, 99. percentil). Použijúc tieto scenáre sme vybranými Box-Jenkinsovými modelmi s dvoma regresormi simulovali extrémne mesačné hodnoty vybraných ukazovateľom kvality vody v Dunaji pre extrémne hydrologické a teplotné podmienky.