A Homogeneous Dataset for Rainfall Trend Analysis in the Calabria Region (Southern Italy)

Tommaso Caloiero,Eugenio Filice,Roberto Coscarelli,Gaetano Pellicone

doi:10.3390/w12092541

Abstract

In order to investigate the tendency in rainfall amount in Calabria (southern Italy), in this work, monthly rainfall series were first tested for homogeneity and then a trend analysis was performed. In particular, a homogenization approach based on the Climatol method was applied to homogenize monthly climatological series. Then, the Mann–Kendall non-parametric test and the Theil–Sen estimator were applied to evaluate the presence of trends and their significance in the monthly, seasonal and annual rainfall series. Moreover, the trend slopes were further evaluated with a linear regression analysis. At the annual scale, results evidenced a decreasing trend mainly in the north-eastern part of the region. At the seasonal scale, a spatial distributed negative trend in winter, and a positive trend in summer, mainly localized in the north-western part of the region, were identified. Finally, on a monthly scale negative trends spreading across the region were detected in January and December, with an opposite behavior in July and especially in September, when almost the entire region presented a positive trend.

Highlights

Nowadays, climate change has received considerable attention, and several papers and technical studies have been conducted to detect its possible impacts all over the globe, such as the occurrence of drought events, severe storms and floods, extreme temperatures, and heat waves [1]
TheThe results the homogenization of the monthly rainfall data, a trend analysis performed
The aim of this paper was to create a reliable rainfall database for the analysis of the climate trend in the Calabria region, where data collection started at the beginning of the past century, and where, climatological series longer than 100 years are available

Summary

Introduction

Climate change has received considerable attention, and several papers and technical studies have been conducted to detect its possible impacts all over the globe, such as the occurrence of drought events, severe storms and floods, extreme temperatures, and heat waves [1]. In this context, the detection of spatio-temporal rainfall variability becomes paramount for water resources management purpose [2]; trend analysis has been largely applied to identify the possible consequences of climate change in several hydrological temporal series around the world and especially, in major hotspots of climate change such as the Mediterranean Basin [3]. In Italy, several rainfall trend analyses at the regional scale

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion