More than one century of hydrological monitoring in two small catchments with different forest coverage, Sperbelgraben and Rappengraben (Switzerland)

Here the longest continuous runoff records (1903 - 2015) from small catchments (less than 1 km2) in Switzerland (and possibly worldwide) are provided as a data set. The history of the hydrological monitoring in the Sperbel- and Rappengraben (Emmental) is summarized in Stähli et al., Environ Monit Assess (2011).

The runoff stations operated safely for more than 90% of the summer months when most of the major flood events occurred. Nevertheless, the absolute values of peak runoff during the largest flood events are subject to considerable uncertainty (also discussed in Stähli et al., 2011). This treasure trove of data can be used in various ways, eg. for analysis of the generalized extreme value distributions of the two catchments, of the mechanisms governing the runoff behavior of small catchments, as well as for testing stochastic and deterministic models.