When a power system is contaminated by power quality problems, a short transition will appear before power system restoring to a new stability state. The short transitions of various power disturbances correspond to different principal component characteristics. According to these characteristics, in this paper, a scheme based on transient behaviors using morphological max-lifting scheme (MMLS) and nonlinear principal component analysis (NLPCA) is developed for the identification of power disturbances. PSCAD/EMTDC is applied to simulate six types of power disturbances, and massive simulation work has been conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed scheme.Index Terms--Morphological max-lifting scheme; nonlinear principal component analysis; power disturbance; transient behavior; identification.