Detecting Flood Variations in Shanghai over 1949–2009 with Mann-Kendall Tests and a Newspaper-Based Database

Water

Shiqiang Du²  Honghuan Gu²  Jiahong Wen²  Ke Chen¹  Anton Van Rompaey³ 

[1] Department of Management, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Longteng Road 333, Shanghai 201620, China; E-Mail:;Department of Geography, Shanghai Normal University, Guilin Road 100, Shanghai 200234, China; E-Mails:;Geography Research Group, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E, Heverlee 3001, Belgium; E-Mail:

关键词: newspapers;    disaster database;    flood;    waterlogging;    Mann-Kendall tests;   

DOI  :  10.3390/w7051808

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

A valuable aid to assessing and managing flood risk lies in a reliable database of historical floods. In this study, a newspaper-based flood database for Shanghai (NFDS) for the period 1949–2009 was developed through a systematic scanning of newspapers. After calibration and validation of the database, Mann-Kendall tests and correlation analysis were applied to detect possible changes in flood frequencies. The analysis was carried out for three different flood types: overbank flood, agricultural waterlogging, and urban waterlogging. The compiled NFDS registered 146 floods and 92% of them occurred in the flood-prone season from June to September. The statistical analyses showed that both the annual flood and the floods in June–August increased significantly. Urban waterlogging showed a very strong increasing trend, probably because of insufficient capacity of urban drainage system and impacts of rapid urbanization. By contrast, the decrease in overbank flooding and the slight increase in agricultural waterlogging were likely because of the construction of river levees and seawalls and the upgrade of agricultural drainage systems, respectively. This study demonstrated the usefulness of local newspapers in building a historical flood database and in assessing flood characterization.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.