A Seismic Approach to Flood Detection and Characterization in Upland Catchments

About 10% of Europe's surface area is prone to rapid flooding rivers confined in valleys. The devastating potential such floods exacerbated by the deficits existing gauging networks, including low station densities and recording frequencies, lack information beyond stage height. Here, we use seismic data July 2021 Ahrtal flood, Germany, extract complement sparse hydrometric data, reconstruct evolution this fatal event. We show that a can deliver essential flood metrics as magnitude, propagation velocity debris transport rate. These products provide high resolution insight non-linear behavior. argue an approach combining distributed low-cost seismometers with stations, important real time on future catastrophic associated hazards upland catchments, offering precious response also currently ungauged landscapes.