ABSTRACT
The maritime climate of Iceland is characterized by mild winters and cool summers. Floods in Iceland have been classified into three main categories: rainfall floods which often are combined with melting of snow and ice, floods due to ice formation and release within river channels, and glacier outburst floods or jokulhlaups, which originate in subglacial or marginal lakes. Floods induced by rainfall and/or melting of snow and ice are the most frequent river floods in Iceland. Glacier outburst floods are known to have occurred in Iceland since the time of deglaciation at the end of the ice age. Iceland is a sparsely populated country and no settlements are currently located in areas that have been inundated by repeated flooding in past centuries. The cyclicity of jokulhlaups emerging from subglacial and marginal lakes means that the occurrence of those events can be predicted reasonably well, and knowledge of the eruptive behaviour of monitored subglacial volcanoes is steadily increasing.
