High-Resolution Sedimentary Paleoflood Records in Alluvial River Environments: A Review of Recent Methodological Advances and Application to Flood Hazard Assessment

In this chapter, we discuss recent developments in paleoflood hydrology that are specific to the collection of high-resolution records from alluvial settings. We describe how to develop and analyze alluvial paleoflood records, including (i) the identification of suitable depositional niches in valley environments and the mechanisms of overbank deposition that lead to flood deposit accumulation at those locations, (ii) approaches for sample material collection and methods to measure the coarseness of individual flood units, (iii) data assessment and reconstruction of absolute and relative flood magnitudes from sedimentary information, and (iv) developing flood chronologies with a discussion of available dating techniques. We argue that alluvial paleoflood archives hold enormous potential for flood hazard assessments in densely populated low-lying areas despite the challenge of quantitative discharge reconstructions in dynamic floodplain settings.