Floods and Droughts: The New Zealand Experience

Floods and Droughts: the New Zealand Experience summarizes the wealth of observation and analysis of floods and droughts in New Zealand. Chapters are contributed by 20 hydrological scientists and water resources professionals, who have worked on many different aspects of floods and droughts. Some chapters present observations of historically significant floods and droughts, and review different approaches to their analysis. Other chapters consider the cause-and-effect relationships between floods and droughts, land use changes, instream uses such as ecosystem maintenance, erosion and sedimentation processes, and the behaviour of groundwater resources. A final pair of chapters focuses on approaches to management of floods and droughts that are being developed in the country, and discuss four specific case studies.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SECTION 1. INTRODUCTION ••
1. Introduction: hydrological extremes and climate in New Zealand -- Paul Mosley and Charles Pearson.
2. Hydrological processes of extreme events -- Richard Ibbitt, Ross Woods and Alistair McKerchar.
3. Historic floods and droughts in New Zealand -- John Waugh, Horace Freestone and Darryl Lew.

SECTION 2: ANALYSIS AND ESTIMATION OF EXTREME EVENTS ••
4. Analysis and estimation of extreme events: deterministic methods -- Alistair McKerchar, Richard Ibbitt, and Ross Woods.
5. Stochastic methods -- Charles Pearson and Tim Davies.
6. Effects of land use on floods and low flows -- Lindsay Rowe, Barry Fahey, Rick Jackson and Maurice Duncan.
7. Environmental effects of extreme flows -- Ian Jowett.
8. Erosion and sedimentation in extreme events -- Murray Hicks and Tim Davies.
9. Hydrological extremes and the groundwater system -- Paul White.

SECTION 3: MANAGEMENT ••
10. Principles of managing extreme events -- George Griffiths and Peter Ross.
11. Floods and droughts: case studies -- Andrew Fenemor.

Index