Extreme flood estimations on a small alpine catchment in Switzerland, the case study of Limmerboden

Abstract. In this paper, a case study on the estimations of extreme floods is described. The watershed chosen for the analysis is the catchment of the Limmernboden dam situated in Switzerland. Statistical methods and the simulation based "Probable Maximum Precipitation – Probable maximum Flood" (PMP-PMF) approach are applied for the estimation of the safety flood according to the Swiss flood directives. The results of both approaches are compared in order to determine the discrepancies between them. It can be outlined that the PMP-PMF method does not always overestimate the flood.