New climate change rainfall estimates for sustainable drainage

Dale, Murray; Luck, B.; Fowler, Hayley J.; Blenkinsop, Stephen; Gill, Elliot; Bennett, J.F.; Kendon, Elizabeth J.; Chan, Steven

doi:10.1680/jensu.15.00030

Cited by 31 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…10 min), and so, gauges for which tip times are available may also provide further value in this context. The dataset includes a limited number of longer records that are suitable, subject to homogeneity testing, for the analysis of long‐term trends and variability. There is considerable demand for hourly rainfall products within the hydrological community for climate change impact assessments. Dale et al () used a small selection of these hourly gauges as analogues for future climate change in assessing potential uplift factors associated with intense rainfall for sewer design. There is also demand for a high‐resolution gridded hourly dataset, particularly for hydrological modelling.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…• There is considerable demand for hourly rainfall products within the hydrological community for climate change impact assessments. Dale et al (2015) used a small selection of these hourly gauges as analogues for future climate change in assessing potential uplift factors associated with intense rainfall for sewer design. There is also demand for a high-resolution gridded hourly dataset, particularly for hydrological modelling.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quality‐control of an hourly rainfall dataset and climatology of extremes for the UK

Blenkinsop

Lewis

Chan

et al. 2016

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Sub‐daily rainfall extremes may be associated with flash flooding, particularly in urban areas but, compared with extremes on daily timescales, have been relatively little studied in many regions. This paper describes a new, hourly rainfall dataset for the UK based on ∼1600 rain gauges from three different data sources. This includes tipping bucket rain gauge data from the UK Environment Agency (EA), which has been collected for operational purposes, principally flood forecasting. Significant problems in the use of such data for the analysis of extreme events include the recording of accumulated totals, high frequency bucket tips, rain gauge recording errors and the non‐operation of gauges. Given the prospect of an intensification of short‐duration rainfall in a warming climate, the identification of such errors is essential if sub‐daily datasets are to be used to better understand extreme events. We therefore first describe a series of procedures developed to quality control this new dataset. We then analyse ∼380 gauges with near‐complete hourly records for 1992–2011 and map the seasonal climatology of intense rainfall based on UK hourly extremes using annual maxima, n‐largest events and fixed threshold approaches. We find that the highest frequencies and intensities of hourly extreme rainfall occur during summer when the usual orographically defined pattern of extreme rainfall is replaced by a weaker, north–south pattern. A strong diurnal cycle in hourly extremes, peaking in late afternoon to early evening, is also identified in summer and, for some areas, in spring. This likely reflects the different mechanisms that generate sub‐daily rainfall, with convection dominating during summer. The resulting quality‐controlled hourly rainfall dataset will provide considerable value in several contexts, including the development of standard, globally applicable quality‐control procedures for sub‐daily data, the validation of the new generation of very high‐resolution climate models and improved understanding of the drivers of extreme rainfall.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quality‐control of an hourly rainfall dataset and climatology of extremes for the UK

Blenkinsop

Lewis

Chan

et al. 2016

Intl Journal of Climatology

Self Cite

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“…Alterations in hydrological extremes are among the evolving processes that most threaten our environment and the management policies against natural hazards. At an urban context, the implications of an increase in severity of extreme runoffs may be directly related to the changes in flood frequencies of urban systems, the overflow frequencies of storage facilities, and the design of urban hydraulic infrastructures (Semadeni-Davies et al, 2008;Willems, 2013;Dale et al, 2015;Neumann et al, 2015). Similarly, at a not-urban context, increases on runoff extremes may exacerbate occurrences of flash floods and debris flow (Borga, Stoffel, Marchi, Marra, & Jakob, 2014;Forestieri, Caracciolo, Arnone, & Noto, 2016;Marchi, Cavalli, Sangati, & Borga, 2009).…”

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 climate scenarios and related changes in rainfall statistics have been transferred to changes in flood frequencies of sewer systems and overflow frequencies of storage facilities. It is clear that this might have a significant impact on future urban water management and planning, and some adaptation strategies will be required (e.g., Dale et al, 2017;Neumann et al, 2015;Semadeni-Davies, Hernebring, Svensson, & Gustafsson, 2008;Willems, 2013).…”

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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New climate change rainfall estimates for sustainable drainage

Abstract: New climate change rainfall estimates for sustainable drainage.

Cited by 31 publications

References 20 publications

Quality‐control of an hourly rainfall dataset and climatology of extremes for the UK

Quality‐control of an hourly rainfall dataset and climatology of extremes for the UK

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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