Fig. 1: Estimated return periods for precipitation events during each dam failure across the CONUS.
From: Increasing dam failure risk in the USA due to compound rainfall clusters as climate changes
Return periods of (a) 1-day maximum precipitation, A* (b) 5-day precedent precipitation total, K5* (c) 30-day precedent precipitation total, K30* (d) joint occurrence of 1-day maximum precipitation and 5-day precedent precipitation total, (A*, K5*), and (e) joint occurrence of 1-day maximum precipitation and 30-day precedent precipitation total (A*, K30*) observed dam failures at each location. The models fit for the probability distributions (GEV for A, Gamma for K5 and K30, and best copula for (A, K5) and (A, K30)) consider linear time trends fit independently to the 1901-2021 20CRv3-ERA5 reanalysis data at each dam location (see Methods for details), and the exceedance probabilities are evaluated from the local model at the year of failure of each dam.
