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Global response of floods to tropical explosive volcanic eruptions

Nature Geoscience volume 18, pages 983–988 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Tropical volcanic eruptions with a high volcanic explosivity index (≥5) impact the global climate system, but little is known about how they affect floods. Here, leveraging global climate model simulations with volcanic forcings and statistical relationships between seasonal climate drivers and peak discharge, we investigate the response of seasonal peak discharges at 7,886 streamgauges worldwide to three tropical explosive volcanic eruptions in the twentieth century: Agung 1963 (Indonesia), Santa Maria 1902 (Guatemala) and Pinatubo 1991 (Philippines), whose stratospheric aerosol plumes were distributed primarily in the Southern Hemisphere, primarily in the Northern Hemisphere and symmetrically across both hemispheres, respectively. For the eruptions with interhemispherically asymmetric aerosol distributions, tropical regions show more immediate and widespread responses to the eruptions than non-tropical regions, with a distinct interhemispheric contrast of decreasing (increasing) peak discharges in the hemisphere in which the eruption happened (did not happen). For the case of symmetric aerosol distribution, tropical (arid) regions have the strongest tendency to respond to the eruption by decreasing (increasing) peak discharges in both hemispheres. These regional flood responses are attributed mainly to seasonal precipitation changes across the climate regions. Beyond direct volcanic hazards, our study provides a global view of the secondary flood hazards resulting from hydroclimatic changes induced by large explosive eruptions.

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Fig. 1: Changes over time in the prevalence of the 2-year RI discharges in response to tropical volcanic eruptions.
Fig. 2: Global responses of the 2-year RI discharges and seasonal precipitation to tropical volcanic eruptions.
Fig. 3: Changes over time in the regional average of the relative changes in the magnitude of the 2-year RI discharges in response to tropical volcanic eruptions.

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Data availability

The worldwide basin boundary data for 7,886 streamgauges are obtained from different streamflow databases: African Database of Hydrometric Indices (ADHI) for Africa (available at https://doi.org/10.23708/LXGXQ9), Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s Hydrologic Reference Stations (HRS) for Australia (available at http://www.bom.gov.au/water/hrs/), United States Geological Survey Streamgauge NHDPlus Version 1 basins 2011 for conterminous United States (available at https://water.usgs.gov/lookup/getspatial?streamgagebasins) and Global Streamflow Indices and Metadata archive (GSIM) for the others (available at https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.887477). The simulated seasonal peak flow datasets supporting the findings of this study are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16037886 (ref. 35). Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

Codes that were used in this study are available upon request to the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The research was supported in part by funding provided by Princeton University.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Hanbeen Kim & Gabriele Villarini

  2. High Meadows Environmental Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Hanbeen Kim, Gabriele Villarini & Gabriel Vecchi

  3. Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Wenchang Yang & Gabriel Vecchi

Authors
  1. Hanbeen Kim
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  2. Gabriele Villarini
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  3. Wenchang Yang
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  4. Gabriel Vecchi
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Contributions

H.K. processed the data, conducted the analyses, created the figures, interpreted the results and prepared the paper. G. Villarini designed the study, interpreted the results and prepared the paper. W.Y. processed the data, interpreted the results and prepared the paper. G. Vecchi interpreted the results and prepared the paper. All authors reviewed and edited the final version of the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gabriele Villarini.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Jon Major and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Tamara Goldin, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Maps showing the location of three volcanoes (triangles) and streamgauges used in this study.

The numbers in parentheses in the titles of the top and middle panels and on the x-axis of the bottom panel represent the number of streamgauges within each climate region. Basin boundaries are shown with bold lines. Colored pixels on land indicate the corresponding climate regions. The boxplots (bottom panel) show the distribution of correlation coefficients between observed and modeled seasonal peak flows across streamgauges stratified by four climate types. In the boxplot, the limits of the box (whiskers) represent the 25th and 75th (5th and 95th) percentiles, while the line inside of the box indicates the median. Figure modified from ref. 2.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 2 Sensitivity of the number of streamgauges with no overlapping basins to the basin size thresholds.

The point with red circle indicates the maximum number of streamgauges with no overlapping basins which is finally selected to assess the impact of overlapping basins on prevalence of flood responses.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 3 Changes over time in the prevalence of the 2-year return interval discharges in response to tropical volcanic eruptions.

Same as Fig. 1 in the main text, but for 4,886 streamgauges with non-overlapping basins only.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Changes over time in the prevalence of the 2-year return interval discharges in response to tropical volcanic eruptions.

Same as Fig. 1 in the main text, but for: a) 6,336 streamgauges whose statistical flood models show a correlation coefficient of at least 0.3 between observed and modeled peak flows for all four seasons; and b) 4,193 streamgauges whose statistical flood models show a correlation coefficient of at least 0.5 between observed and modeled peak flows for all four seasons.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 5 Changes over time in the regional average of the absolute changes in the magnitude of the 2-year return interval discharges in response to tropical volcanic eruptions.

Changes in the discharge magnitude due to the eruptions are calculated by subtracting the ensemble median of 30 non-eruption simulations from that of 30 eruption simulations. The regional average values are then obtained by taking the median across the streamgauges stratified by tropical (magenta line), arid (orange line), temperate (green line), and cold (light blue line) regions. The lines above (below) zero show the results for streamgauges experiencing increasing (decreasing) discharge due to eruptions. The vertical red line indicates the season in which the eruption occurred. The shaded areas separated by different colors and vertical black lines represent each year, from the first (YR1) to the fourth year (YR4) after the eruption. Panels show results for Agung (Indonesia), Santa Maria (Guatemala), and Pinatubo (Philippines) eruptions.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 6 Global responses of the 2-year return interval discharges and seasonal temperature to tropical volcanic eruptions.

The red (blue) circles show the streamgauges having statistically significant decrease (increase) in the 2-year return interval discharge due to the eruptions. Grid cells inland indicate absolute change in the median of the season-averaged temperatures across 30 ensemble members. The redder grids represent greater decreases, while the bluer grids represent greater increases in temperature due to the eruptions. Three rows represent the results for September-November season for Agung (Indonesia), December-February season for Santa Maria (Guatemala), and March-May season for Pinatubo (Philippines) eruptions, from top to bottom. Three columns represent the results of the first (YR1), second (YR2), and third year (YR3) after eruptions, from left to right.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 7 Responses of discharges for different return intervals to tropical volcanic eruptions.

Percentages of streamgauges showing significant decreases (first and third columns) and increases (second and fourth columns) in peak discharges calculated for 2-, 10-, 50-, and 100-year return intervals. The darker the color, the greater the discharge return interval. The vertical red line indicates the season in which the eruption occurred. The shaded areas separated by different colors and vertical black lines represent each year, from the first (YR1) to the fourth year (YR4) after the eruption. Panels show results for Agung (Indonesia), Santa Maria (Guatemala), and Pinatubo (Philippines) eruptions.

Source data

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–8.

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Kim, H., Villarini, G., Yang, W. et al. Global response of floods to tropical explosive volcanic eruptions. Nat. Geosci. 18, 983–988 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01782-5

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