Climate change effects on the hydrological regime of small non-perennial river basins

Pumo, Dario; Caracciolo, Domenico; Viola, Francesco; Noto, Leonardo

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.10.109

Cited by 95 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 50 publications

(65 reference statements)

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“…For each basin, historical monthly series of runoff depth at the basin outlet and simultaneous monthly areal precipitation have been retrieved from the official OA-ARRA annual reports (i.e., Annali Idrologici). The corresponding series of mean areal temperature have been estimated starting from the data collected by all the OA-ARRA thermometric stations (Figure 1b) and using the same spatial interpolation techniques used in Pumo et al [48]; more specifically, algorithms based on a station weighting technique [49,50], which also take into account the elevation, have been used.…”

Section: Data Sources and Regional Databasementioning

confidence: 99%

Generation of Natural Runoff Monthly Series at Ungauged Sites Using a Regional Regressive Model

Pumo

Viola

Noto

2016

Water

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Many hydrologic applications require reliable estimates of runoff in river basins to face the widespread lack of data, both in time and in space. A regional method for the reconstruction of monthly runoff series is here developed and applied to Sicily (Italy). A simple modeling structure is adopted, consisting of a regression-based rainfall-runoff model with four model parameters, calibrated through a two-step procedure. Monthly runoff estimates are based on precipitation, temperature, and exploiting the autocorrelation with runoff at the previous month. Model parameters are assessed by specific regional equations as a function of easily measurable physical and climate basin descriptors. The first calibration step is aimed at the identification of a set of parameters optimizing model performances at the level of single basin. Such "optimal" sets are used at the second step, part of a regional regression analysis, to establish the regional equations for model parameters assessment as a function of basin attributes. All the gauged watersheds across the region have been analyzed, selecting 53 basins for model calibration and using the other six basins exclusively for validation. Performances, quantitatively evaluated by different statistical indexes, demonstrate relevant model ability in reproducing the observed hydrological time-series at both the monthly and coarser time resolutions. The methodology, which is easily transferable to other arid and semi-arid areas, provides a reliable tool for filling/reconstructing runoff time series at any gauged or ungauged basin of a region.

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Section: Data Sources and Regional Databasementioning

confidence: 99%

Generation of Natural Runoff Monthly Series at Ungauged Sites Using a Regional Regressive Model

Pumo

Viola

Noto

2016

Water

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“…Several studies have been carried out in an attempt to analyse the effects of climate alterations on the hydrological processes in catchments (Feng & Zhang, ; Francipane, Fatichi, Ivanov, & Noto, ; Liuzzo, Noto, Arnone, Caracciolo, & La Loggia, ; Perazzoli, Pinheiro, & Kaufmann, ; Piras, Mascaro, Deidda, & Vivoni, ; Pumo, Caracciolo, Viola, & Noto, ; Pumo, Viola, & Noto, ; Viola et al, ). Many other studies tried to study the effects of land‐use changes on hydrological response (Gumindoga et al, ; Huang, Cheng, Wen, & Lee, , ; Miller et al, ; Yang, Entekhabi, Castelli, & Chua, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of urban growth, climate change, and their interplay in altering runoff extremes

Arnone

Pumo

Francipane

et al. 2018

Hydrological Processes

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Changes in climate and urban growth are the most influential factors affecting hydrological characteristics in urban and extra‐urban contexts. The assessment of the impacts of these changes on the extreme rainfall–runoff events may have important implications on urban and extra‐urban management policies against severe events, such as floods, and on the design of hydraulic infrastructures. Understanding the effects of the interaction between climate change and urban growth on the generation of runoff extremes is the main aim of this paper. We carried out a synthetic experiment on a river catchment of 64 km2 to generate hourly runoff time series under different hypothetical scenarios. We imposed a growth of the percentage of urban coverage within the basin (from 1.5% to 25%), a rise in mean temperature of 2.6 °C, and an alternatively increase/decrease in mean annual precipitation of 25%; changes in mean annual precipitation were imposed following different schemes, either changing rainstorm frequency or rainstorm intensity. The modelling framework consists of a physically based distributed hydrological model, which simulates fast and slow mechanisms of runoff generation directly connected with the impervious areas, a land‐use change model, and a weather generator. The results indicate that the peaks over threshold and the hourly annual peaks, used as hydrological indicators, are very sensitive to the rainstorm intensity. Moreover, the effects of climate changes dominate on those of urban growth determining an exacerbation of the fast runoff component in extreme events and a reduction of the slow and deep runoff component, thus limiting changes in the overall runoff.

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“…The Mediterranean area has been demonstrated to be one of the regions most affected by changes in climate, indicated as one of the major “hot‐spots” in future climate projections (Giorgi, ). Works on historical observations have demonstrated that in some areas, sub‐daily extreme rainfall is intensifying more rapidly than daily extreme precipitation (e.g., Arnone et al, ; Berg, Moseley, & Haerter, ; Bonaccorso & Aronica, ; Burn et al, ; Lenderink & Van Meijgaard, ), with possible consequences for the increased occurrence of flash floods caused by short‐duration rainfall (Forestieri, Caracciolo, Arnone, & Noto, ; Pumo, Caracciolo, Viola, & Noto, ), though this pattern is not observed in all locations (Barbero, Fowler, Lenderink, & Blenkinsop, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of climate change on extreme precipitation in Sicily, Italy

Forestieri

Arnone

Blenkinsop

et al. 2018

Hydrological Processes

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Increasing precipitation extremes are one of the possible consequences of a warmer climate. These may exceed the capacity of urban drainage systems, and thus impact the urban environment. Because short‐duration precipitation events are primarily responsible for flooding in urban systems, it is important to assess the response of extreme precipitation at hourly (or sub‐hourly) scales to a warming climate. This study aims to evaluate the projected changes in extreme rainfall events across the region of Sicily (Italy) and, for two urban areas, to assess possible changes in Depth‐Duration‐Frequency (DDF) curves. We used Regional Climate Model outputs from Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment for Europe area ensemble simulations at a ~12 km spatial resolution, for the current period and 2 future horizons under the Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 scenario. Extreme events at the daily scale were first investigated by comparing the quantiles estimated from rain gauge observations and Regional Climate Model outputs. Second, we implemented a temporal downscaling approach to estimate rainfall for sub‐daily durations from the modelled daily precipitation, and, lastly, we analysed future projections at daily and sub‐daily scales. A frequency distribution was fitted to annual maxima time series for the sub‐daily durations to derive the DDF curves for 2 future time horizons and the 2 urban areas. The overall results showed a raising of the growth curves for the future horizons, indicating an increase in the intensity of extreme precipitation, especially for the shortest durations. The DDF curves highlight a general increase of extreme quantiles for the 2 urban areas, thus underlining the risk of failure of the existing urban drainage systems under more severe events.

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Climate change effects on the hydrological regime of small non-perennial river basins

Cited by 95 publications

References 50 publications

Generation of Natural Runoff Monthly Series at Ungauged Sites Using a Regional Regressive Model

Generation of Natural Runoff Monthly Series at Ungauged Sites Using a Regional Regressive Model

The role of urban growth, climate change, and their interplay in altering runoff extremes

The impact of climate change on extreme precipitation in Sicily, Italy

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