Effect of climatic oscillations on flood occurrence on Papaloapan River, México, during the 1550–2000 period

Abstract

This study presents a chronology of historical and measured flood events in the Papaloapan River basin of Mexico during 450 years. Twenty-eight historical floods were recorded during the period 1550–1948 on this river and one flood event (1969) in the instrumental era (1949–2000), of which 14 were extraordinary floods and only 15 were catastrophic ones. There were several flood-rich decades during 1860–1870, 1880–1890, 1920–1930 and 1940–1950. Wavelet analysis found a significant flooding periodicity of 58 years. The wavelet coherence analysis found that flooding had an in-phase relationship with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and also with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Logistic regression corroborated that there exists a positive relationship between floods events and these two natural climatic oscillations. The logistic regression model predicted correctly 92% of flood events.