The Benefit of Continuous Hydrological Modelling for Drought Hazard Assessment in Small and Coastal Ungauged Basins: A Case Study in Southern Italy

Abstract

Rainfall-runoff modelling in small and ungauged basins represents one of the most common practices. However, it remains a challenging task for researchers and practitioners, in particular in a climate change context and in areas subject to drought risk. When discharge observations are not available, empirical or event-based approaches are commonly used. However, these schemes can be affected by several relevant assumptions. In the last years, continuous models have been developed in order to address the major drawbacks of event-based approaches. With this goal in mind, in this work we applied a synthetic rainfall generation model (STORAGE; stochastic rainfall generator), constituting the implementation of a modified version of Neymann-Scott rectangular pulse (NSRP) model, and a continuous rainfall-runoff framework (COSMO4SUB; continuous simulation modelling for small and ungauged basins) specifically designed for ungauged basins within a climate change context. The modeling approach allows one to investigate the drought hazard using specific indicators for rainfall and runoff in a small watershed located in southern Italy. Results show that the investigated area seems to tend to a mild/moderate drought in a future time period of approximately 30 years, with a decrease in seasonal water volumes availability in the range of 15–30%. Finally, our results confirm that the continuous modelling is suitable for rapid and effective design simulations supporting drought hazard assessment.

Climate impacts and adaptation strategies for coastal erosion, aquaculture, and tourism along the Adriatic side of Apulia region

“…4. Decreasing domestic water for the tourism industry and increasing energy consumption: Climatic projections for Apulia and Southern Italy indicate a progressive decrease in average annual rainfall and longer dry periods (De Luca et al, 2022). Water scarcity can seriously damage the competitiveness of a tourist destination, especially in coastal tourism during the summer, which requires substantial water for sanitation, catering, and recreational activities.…”

Rainwater Harvesting in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands of Africa: Challenges and Opportunities

“…It is the most valuable natural resource with countless uses and tremendous significance that cannot be overstated (N Ka Patel et al, 2020). However, water scarcity has become a worldwide challenge due to urbanization (Umukiza et al, 2021;De Luca et al, 2022), population growth, and climate change (Hassan et al, 2021), and this is particularly felt in Africa. The practice of rainwater harvesting in arid and semi-arid lands of Africa is of crucial importance due to the variety of challenges and opportunities that exist in these regions.…”

Quantitative Analysis of the Uncertainty of Drought Process Simulation Based on Atmospheric–Hydrological Coupling in Different Climate Zones

“…Droughts are complex and typically slowly evolving phenomena, with the beginning and ending times difficult to accurately identify [14][15][16]; thus, it is hard to define a drought's intensity and severity. The method of atmospheric-hydrological coupling can realize the simulation and prediction of hydrological processes so as to realize drought simulation and prediction, which has become a state-of-the-art method around the world [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. The distributed models are more suitable for drought simulation and prediction [28].…”