Abstract
Compound spring floods in cold-continental and semi-arid interiors arise from interacting snowmelt, rain-on-snow events, intense precipitation, and frozen or saturated soils, yet these mechanisms remain poorly synthesized for Central Asia. This review develops a process-oriented framework linking preconditioning, triggers, propagation/amplification, impacts, and recovery outcomes. The synthesis shows that the most destructive spring floods occur when substantial antecedent snow storage and restricted infiltration coincide with rapid warming and rainfall, producing efficient runoff generation and widespread impacts. Evidence from Kazakhstan and comparable continental regions indicates that mechanistic understanding is relatively robust, but standardized event-level reporting of snow-water equivalent, soil wetness, precipitation phase, routing constraints, and recovery indicators remains uneven. To support post-disaster comparison, we introduce and demonstrate a Recovery Effectiveness Index (REI) combining housing resettlement, compensation, infrastructure restoration, and equity of assistance. A proof-of-concept application to the 2024 Kazakhstan floods produced a 21 June 2024 snapshot REI of 0.607–0.757 and an end-year REI of 0.850–1.000, depending on the treatment of the equity component. The framework supports compound-driver monitoring, early warning, recovery benchmarking, and more harmonized flood-risk assessment in data-sparse continental regions.