Abstract
Abstract. In the present study an attempt is made to provide a general Monte Carlo approach for deriving flood frequency curves in ungauged basins in Sicily region (Italy). The proposed procedure consists of (i) a regional frequency analysis of extreme rainfall series, combined with Huff curves-based synthetic hyetographs, for design storms and (ii) a rainfall-runoff model, based on the Time-Area technique, to generate synthetic hydrographs. Validation of the procedure is carried out on four gauged river basins in Sicily region (Italy), where synthetic peak flow frequency curves, obtained by simulating 1000 flood events, are compared with observed values. Results of the application reveal that the proposed Monte Carlo approach is suitable to reproduce with reasonable accuracy the hydrologic response of the investigated basins. Given its relative simplicity, the developed procedure can be easily extended to poorly gauged or ungauged basins.
Highlights
Derivation of frequency distributions of peak flows is extremely important for many practical applications in engineering, such as: designing hydraulic structures, water resources planning and management, flood risk assessment and floodplain management
Estimation of effective storm depths is made through the Curve Number (CN) method developed by the US Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), formerly known as the Soil Conservation Service (SCS)
Capitalizing on approaches proposed in previous studies (De Michele and Salvadori, 2002; Aronica and Candela, 2007), the Antecedent Moisture Conditions (AMC) in CN method are treated as a random variable with a discrete probability distribution, in order to relax the iso-frequency assumption between the design storms and the resulting hydrographs
Summary
Derivation of frequency distributions of peak flows is extremely important for many practical applications in engineering, such as: designing hydraulic structures, water resources planning and management, flood risk assessment and floodplain management. In spite of some recent efforts to update the VAPI study for Sicily (Ferro and Porto, 2006; Noto and La Loggia, 2009), currently there is no consensus on a single standard procedure To this end, the present study aims to provide a general Monte Carlo approach for deriving peak flow frequency curves in ungauged basins in Sicily. A regional analysis of extreme rainfall, based on the index flood-type method (Dalrymple, 1960), is carried out to derive total storm depths of different return periods Such storm depths are distributed in time according to synthetic hyetographs generated by the Huff curves method (Huff, 1967), which provides a probabilistic representation of accumulated storm depths for corresponding accumulated storm durations expressed in dimensionless form. Alcantara at Moio Imera Meridionale at Drasi Belice at Ponte Belice Salso at Ponte Gagliano
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