ABSTRACT
This chapter utilizes the published regional high flow catalogue, based on the Regional High Flow Index (RHFI) time series, indicating the regional extent of hydrological extremes as a benchmark against which to evaluate the abilities of global hydrological models in reproducing regional high flow anomalies. It looks at how large-scale flood characteristics might change in the future, using projections from Global Climate Models. Evaluation of the hydrological models was conducted by quantitative and qualitative comparisons of the RHFI time series derived from observations and simulations. Flood characteristics vary spatially and temporally throughout Europe, and it is important to consider the variability when characterising observed hydrological extremes at the European scale. Using the RHFI methodology, total runoff simulated by large-scale hydrological models was used to generate simulated RHFI time series for the European regions, which were directly comparable with the observed European catalogues.
