Hydrological extremes : understanding, predicting, mitigating : proceedings of an international symposium held during IUGG 99, the XXII General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, at Birmingham, UK 18-30 July 1999 / edited by Lars Gottschalk ... [et al.].

Includes bibliographies

In the last decade, extreme hydrological events - floods and droughts - have caused significant losses all over the world. Aiming at reduction of these losses and improvement of the present preparedness, a need for more holistic approaches has become evident. Four issues of particular importance were identified: to improve understanding of hydrological and atmospheric processes that lead to hydrological extremes; to predict their occurrence and severity; to solve management issues related to preparedness and mitigation; and, to estimate hydrological extremes in a changing environment. The symposium, organized under five sessions, offered a broad perspective on these issues. They embrace such themes as: 1) links between atmospheric circulation patterns and hydrological extremes; 2) processes responsible for nonstationarity in time series of hydrological extremes; 3-4) methodologies for prediction of severity and magnitudes of droughts and floods; and, 5) mitigation of hydrological extremes. The contributions represent a variety of natural conditions from arid and humid tropics to tundra and glacial environments