Search results for "rainfall"
showing 10 items of 233 documents
Las crecidas en ramblas valencianas mediterráneas
2001
This paper takes into account the characterisation of ephemeral stream hydrology from Mediterranean environments. The heavy floods that these countries suffer are due to firstly, the physical watershed features (steep slopes, scarced vegetation cover and thin soils) and, secondly, to the intense and variable rainfall. Large quantities of precipitation fall in a matter of hours, or even minutes, over very steep catchments, causing catastrophic flash-floods, with very pointed hydrographs and short time lags. Using hydrological daily data from the Rambla de la Viuda basin and five-minute data from both Barranc de Carraixet and Rambla de Poyo basins, we have analysed the rainfall- runoff proces…
Long-term impact of rainfed agricultural land abandonment on soil erosion in the Western Mediterranean basin
2018
[EN] Land abandonment is widespread in the Mediterranean mountains. The impact of agricultural abandonment results in a shift in ecosystem evolution due to changes in soil erosion, but little is known about long-term soil and water losses. This paper uses 11 years of measurements in two paired plots (abandoned vs control) with four subplots to determine how soil and water losses evolved after abandonment within an agricultural parcel. For two years (2004¿2005) both plots were under tillage, and after 2006 one plot was abandoned. The monitored plots measured runoff and sediment concentration after each rainfall event.
A statistical approach towards a regionalization of daily rainfall in Sri Lanka
1993
Regionalization of daily rainfall in Sri Lanka was examined using orthogonal factor analysis (OFA) based on daily rainfall data of 42 stations for a 15-year period (1971–1985). The number of potential rainy days was computed from the original data matrix and subjected to S-mode OFA. The first 10 orthogonal factors were shown as highly significant, explaining 65.1 per cent of the total variance of the whole data matrix, where the level of eigenvalues represented was > 1.0. Noticeably, the 10 orthogonal factors clearly revealed the different homogeneous daily rainfall regions in Sri Lanka (labelled as A to J), according to the orthogonal factor high loadings matrix. Delimitation of the daily …
Association between climate and new daily diagnoses of COVID-19
2020
AbstractBackgroundAlthough evidence is accumulating that climate conditions may positively or negatively influence the scale of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreaks, uncertainty remains concerning the real impact of climate factors on viral transmission. Methods. The number of new daily cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in Verona (Italy) was retrieved from the official website of Veneto Region, while information on daily weather parameters in the same area was downloaded from IlMeteo website, a renowned Italian technological company specialized in weather forecasts. The search period ranged between March 1 to November 11, 2020. The number of new daily COVID-19 cases and meteorological da…
Uncertainty evaluation of design rainfall for urban flood risk analysis
2011
A reliable and long dataset describing urban flood locations, volumes and depths would be an ideal prerequisite for assessing flood frequency distributions. However, data are often piecemeal and long-term hydraulic modelling is often adopted to estimate floods from historical rainfall series. Long-term modelling approaches are time- and resource-consuming, and synthetically designed rainfalls are often used to estimate flood frequencies. The present paper aimsto assess the uncertainty of such an approach and for suggesting improvements in thedefinition of synthetic rainfall data for flooding frequency analysis. According to this aim, a multivariate statistical analysis based on a copulameth…
Selection of the Optimal Design Rainfall Return Period of Urban Drainage Systems
2014
Abstract The aim of this work is to define a methodology to identify the optimal rainfall return period for the design of urban drainage systems. The choice of the optimal return period is made minimizing the total costs of the system: the sewer network is dimensioned for a set of possible design rainfall return periods, and the corresponding construction, maintenance and operation costs are evaluated. For each scenario, the total expected damage from flooding caused by rainfall events with return period greater than the design one is then estimated by hydraulic simulation. This methodology has been applied to a small urban catchment in Palermo (Italy).
Climatic gradients along the windward slopes of Mount Kenya and their implication for crop risks. Part 2 : crop sensitivity.
2016
16 pages; International audience; Mount Kenya is an equatorial mountain whose climatic setting is fairly simple (two rainy seasons in March–May, the Long Rains, and October–December, the Short Rains) though concealing significant spatial variations related to elevation and aspect (part I, Camberlin et al., 2014). This part II is dedicated to the sensitivity of sorghum yields to climate variability in space and time, with a focus on the intra-seasonal characteristics of the rainy seasons. To that aim we use the crop model SARRA-H calibrated for the region and fed with rainfall, temperature, wind speed, humidity and solar radiation data over the period 1973–2001 at three stations located on t…
Interspecific attraction between ground-nesting songbirds and ants: the role of nest-site selection
2021
Abstract Background Interspecific interactions within ecological networks can influence animal fitness and behaviour, including nest-site selection of birds and ants. Previous studies revealed that nesting birds and ants may benefit from cohabitation, with interspecific attraction through their nest-site choice, but mutual interactions have not yet been tested. We explored a previously undescribed ecological link between ground-nesting birds and ants raising their own broods (larvae and pupae) within the birds’ nests in a temperate primeval forest of lowland Europe. We tested whether the occurrence of ant broods within bird nests resulted from a mutual or one-sided interspecific attraction …
Spatial distribution of rainfall trends in Sicily (1921–2000)
2006
Abstract The feared global climate change could have important effects on various environmental variables including rainfall in many countries around the world. Changes in precipitation regime directly affect water resources management, agriculture, hydrology and ecosystems. For this reason it is important to investigate the changes in the spatial and temporal rainfall pattern in order to improve water management strategies. In this study a non-parametric statistical method (Mann–Kendall rank correlation method) is employed in order to verify the existence of trend in annual, seasonal and monthly rainfall and the distribution of the rainfall during the year. This test is applied to about 25…
A new strategy to assure compliance with soil loss tolerance at a regional scale
2023
The relevant erosive effects of extraordinary rainfall events due to climate change require establishing soil conservation strategies to prevent damages due to hydrogeological instability. The “tolerable” soil loss, i.e., the maximum soil loss compatible with sustainable soil use, represents a quantitative target to establish the effectiveness of actions to control soil erosion. In this paper, a new approach to defining the condition corresponding to a tolerable soil loss is proposed. At first, using the statistical analysis of the measured annual values of the rainfall erosivity factor, the cover and management factor CT, for which the maximum tolerable soil loss is equal to the annual soi…