Rationale for flood prediction in karst endorheic areas

The observation of historical flood events suggests that in such areas traditional methods for the individuation of the design flood event, and in particular of critical rainfall duration, lack of applicability and the worst rainfall condition, for a fixed return time, should be searched accounting for soil hydraulic behaviour and groundwater dynamics. In this paper a rationale for the evaluation of the critical rainfall event and of the flood-prone area for given return period is proposed. A case study is presented showing that for high return period events a “multiple-reservoirs” mechanism is activated that affects the critical rainfall condition as well as the flood extent in the urban areas.