To seek stochastic analogies in key processes related to the hydrological cycle, an extended collection of several billions of data values from hundred thousands of worldwide stations is used in this work. The examined processes are the near-surface hourly temperature, dew point, relative humidity, sea level pressure, and atmospheric wind speed, as well as the hourly/daily streamflow and precipitation. Through the use of robust stochastic metrics such as the K-moments and a second-order climacogram (i.e., variance of the averaged process vs. scale), it is found that several stochastic similarities exist in both the marginal structure, in terms of the first four moments, and in the second-order dependence structure. Stochastic similarities are also detected among the examined processes, forming a specific hierarchy among their marginal and dependence structures, similar to the one in the hydrological cycle. Finally, similarities are also traced to the isotropic and nearly Gaussian turbulence, as analyzed through extensive lab recordings of grid turbulence and of turbulent buoyant jet along the axis, which resembles the turbulent shear and buoyant regime that dominates and drives the hydrological-cycle processes in the boundary layer. The results are found to be consistent with other studies in literature such as solar radiation, ocean waves, and evaporation, and they can be also justified by the principle of maximum entropy. Therefore, they allow for the development of a universal stochastic view of the hydrological-cycle under the Hurst–Kolmogorov dynamics, with marginal structures extending from nearly Gaussian to Pareto-type tail behavior, and with dependence structures exhibiting roughness (fractal) behavior at small scales, long-term persistence at large scales, and a transient behavior at intermediate scales.

Storm Daniel initiated on 3 September 2023, over the Northeastern Aegean Sea, causing extreme rainfall levels for the following four days, reaching an average of about 360 mm over the Peneus basin, in Thessaly, Central Greece. This event led to extensive floods, with 17 human lives lost and devastating environmental and economic impacts. The automatic water-monitoring network of the HIMIOFoTS National Research Infrastructure captured the evolution of the phenomenon and the relevant hydrometeorological (rainfall, water stage, and discharge) measurements were used to analyse the event’s characteristics. The results indicate that the average rainfall’s return period was up to 150 years, the peak flow close to the river mouth reached approximately 1950 m³/s, and the outflow volume of water to the sea was 1670 hm³. The analysis of the observed hydrographs across Peneus also provided useful lessons from the flood-engineering perspective regarding key modelling assumptions and the role of upstream retentions. Therefore, extending and supporting the operation of the HIMIOFoTS infrastructure is crucial to assist responsible authorities and local communities in reducing potential damages and increasing the socioeconomic resilience to natural disasters, as well as to improve the existing knowledge with respect to extreme flood-simulation approaches.

In February 2017, a failure occurring in Oroville Dam’s main spillway risked causing severe damages downstream. A unique aspect of this incident was the fact that it happened during a flood scenario well within its design and operational procedures, prompting research into its causes and determining methods to prevent similar events from reoccurring. In this study, a hydroclimatic analysis of Oroville Dam’s catchment is conducted, along with a review of related design and operational manuals. The data available allows for the comparison of older flood-frequency analyses to new alternative methods proposed in this paper and relevant literature. Based on summary characteristics of the 2017 floods, possible causes of the incident are outlined, in order to understand which factors contributed more significantly. It turns out that the event was most likely the result of a structural problem in the dam’s main spillway and detrimental geological conditions, but analysis of surface level data also reveals operational issues that were not present during previous larger floods, promoting a discussion about flood control design methods, specifications, and dam inspection procedures, and how these can be improved to prevent a similar event from occurring in the future.

Comprehending the correlation between alterations in human‐flood distance and flood fatalities (as well as displacements) is pivotal for formulating effective human adaptive strategies in response to floods. However, this relationship remains inadequately explored in existing global analyses. To address this gap, we examine 910 flood events occurring from 2000 to 2018, resulting in significant numbers of fatalities and displacements. We find that in 53% of countries, humans tend to distance from floods, particularly in the Middle East. Such distancing greatly mitigates flood fatalities and displacements. Simultaneously, in areas with increased flood protection level (FPL), humans are less likely to move away from floods. Furthermore, FPL and human‐flood distance have decreased in regions affected by ice jam‐ and hurricane‐induced floods from 2000 to 2018. Notably, regions with human‐flood distance slightly below the average for a given flood type experience more severe flood fatalities.

Clustering of extremes is critical for hydrological design and risk management and challenges the popular assumption of independence of extremes. We investigate the links between clustering of extremes and long-term persistence, else Hurst-Kolmogorov (HK) dynamics, in the parent process exploring the possibility of inferring the latter from the former. We find that (a) identifiability of persistence from maxima depends foremost on the choice of the threshold for extremes, the skewness and kurtosis of the parent process, and less on sample size; and (b) existing indices for inferring dependence from series of extremes are downward biased when applied to non-Gaussian processes. We devise a probabilistic index based on the probability of occurrence of peak-over-threshold events across multiple scales, which can reveal clustering, linking it to the persistence of the parent process. Its application shows that rainfall extremes may exhibit noteworthy departures from independence and consistency with an HK model.