Figure 2. Flood return intervals for different scenarios of land cover and climate change.

The numbers prefixing the annotated description of each scenario provides a reference to Table 1, which describes each scenario in more detail. The changes in the values for each return interval illustrate the potential changes in the likelihood of extreme flow events under the different scenarios. For example, the return period of a flood with a daily flow of 150 mm (similar to the May 1981 flood in this area) would decrease from a baseline of more than 100 years to 70 years under future climate (scenario 5).