Climate Change and its Influence on Design Flood Estimation

Design flood estimation remains a problem for many professionals involved in the management of rural and urban catchments. Advice is required regarding design flood characteristics for many design problems including the design of culverts and bridges necessary for cross drainage of transport routes, the design of urban drainage systems, the design of flood mitigation levees and other flood mitigation structures, design of dam spillways, and many environmental flow problems. This advice is complicated further by the increasing requirement to consider the impact of changing climatic states on design floods. Presented herein is a discussion of the design flood problem for both current and future climate states.