Floods in a changing climate: extreme precipitation

This is fundamentally a book about statistical analyses, primarily of rainfall. The chapters of this book are: “Precipitation and climate change”, “Precipitation measurement”, “Spatial analysis of precipitation”, “Extreme precipitation and floods”, “Climate change modeling and precipitation”, “Precipitation variability and teleconnections”, “Precipitation trends and variability”, “Hydrologic modeling and design” and “Future perspectives”. Although the book is attractively printed, with many figures, the overall production values are disappointing. No editor is credited and the book appears to suffer greatly from a lack of editing. Many figures are not sufficiently explained in the text, or their captions, to be understandable. Units of measurement are often omitted from figures and tables. There is no consistency in the number of significant figures in tables. Gauged precipitation depths are shown to 1 or 0.01 or 0.001 mm, and discharges are shown to a precision of 1 or 0.01 m3/s. Obviously, the larger numbers of significant figures are beyond the limits of measurement. Some figures (such as Figure 2.25) plot essentially the same information twice. The quality of writing is also poor, with a great deal of excess verbiage. A book of this scope is necessarily rather broad, rather than covering any single topic in great depth. As the author’s focus is mathematical, primarily statistical, the underlying physics is generally given short shrift. Although the terms in equations are listed, there is often no real explanation of their derivation or meanings. As a result, it is difficult for the user to evaluate the appropriateness of the methods presented. Some of the statistical analyses, although presented in depth, are also dated. Precipitation is shown as being interpolable by smooth surfaces. There is no discussion, or even mention, of rainfall scaling or multiscaling, even in the chapter on downscaling. There is no discussion of the methods of finding trends in the parameters of the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution. The Pareto Distribution is mentioned but is not shown, which is a shame as it is very useful in describing the distribution of precipitation in semi-arid regions such as the Canadian Prairies. As the focus of the book is on precipitation, its treatment of hydrology is unsurprisingly brief. There is very little discussion of the differences between physically based and conceptual models. This is particularly problematic in a book that deals with climate change, and there is no discussion of the issues with using calibrated conceptual models under simulated future climates. Although published by Cambridge University Press and UNESCO, the book is heavily biased to the author’s location in Florida. Few of the examples or maps include regions outside the United States. Although the word “precipitation” is used in the book’s title, the author gives very little consideration to snowfall. In fact, the word “snow” is not found in the index, but three paragraphs are devoted to snow measurement. There is no consideration of the processes affecting cold-region precipitation (snow accumulation, interception, sublimation, melt, infiltration to frozen soils), on flooding, which limits the applicability of the book to Canadian readers. Overall, it is difficult to recommend this book. The exercises included with each chapter suggest that it is aimed at undergraduate students, and the in-depth coverage of some statistical topics may make it useful as a reference book. The list of references is very extensive and may also be useful, particularly to students. However, the lack of context could cause problems for students in understanding the derivations and the limitations of the equations presented, and could lead inexperienced readers to use methods that are not appropriate. The book should be regarded as an introductory survey.