Discharges of past flood events based on historical river profiles

Papers published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions are under open-access review for the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Abstract This paper presents a case study to estimate peak discharges of extreme flood events of Neckar River in southwestern Germany during the 19th century. It was carried out within the BMBF research project RIMAX (Risk Management of Extreme Flood Events). The discharge estimations were made for the flood events of 1824 and 1882 5 based on historical cross profiles. The 1-D model Hydrologic Engineering Centers River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) was applied with different roughness coefficients. The results are compared (i) with contemporary historical calculations and (ii) in the case of a flood event in 1824 with the discharge simulation by the water balance model LARSIM (Large Area Runoff Simulation Model). These calculations are matched by 10 the HEC-RAS simulation based on the standard roughness coefficients.