Abstract
Abstract. In this paper a procedure to derive synthetic flood design hydrographs (SFDH) using a bivariate representation of rainfall forcing (rainfall duration and intensity) via copulas, which describes and models the correlation between two variables independently of the marginal laws involved, coupled with a distributed rainfall–runoff model, is presented. Rainfall–runoff modelling (R–R modelling) for estimating the hydrological response at the outlet of a catchment was performed by using a conceptual fully distributed procedure based on the Soil Conservation Service – Curve Number method as an excess rainfall model and on a distributed unit hydrograph with climatic dependencies for the flow routing. Travel time computation, based on the distributed unit hydrograph definition, was performed by implementing a procedure based on flow paths, determined from a digital elevation model (DEM) and roughness parameters obtained from distributed geographical information. In order to estimate the primary return period of the SFDH, which provides the probability of occurrence of a hydrograph flood, peaks and flow volumes obtained through R–R modelling were treated statistically using copulas. Finally, the shapes of hydrographs have been generated on the basis of historically significant flood events, via cluster analysis. An application of the procedure described above has been carried out and results presented for the case study of the Imera catchment in Sicily, Italy.
Highlights
Floods are a global problem and are considered the most frequent natural disaster worldwide
This section describes in detail the proposed procedure to derive synthetic flood design hydrographs (SFDH) whose layout can be summarised as follows: (1) stochastic generation of rainfall to derive single synthetic rainfall events by a bivariate analysis based on copulas; (2) rainfall–runoff modelling for the estimation of the hydrological response at the outlet of the catchment using a conceptual fully distributed model; (3) derivation of synthetic hydrographs by bivariate analysis of rainfall–runoff outputs
In this study a procedure to derive flood design hydrographs (FDH) using a bivariate representation of rainfall forcing described by copulas coupled with a distributed rainfall–runoff model was presented
Summary
Floods are a global problem and are considered the most frequent natural disaster worldwide. The European Parliament has adopted the new Directive 2007/60/EC (European Union, 2007) that requires member states to assess if coastal areas and water courses are at risk from flooding, to produce flood risk maps and take measures to mitigate the consequent risk. The objective of this directive is to establish a framework for the assessment and management of flood risk in Europe, emphasising both the frequency and magnitude of a flood as well as its consequences. They are often simple and their ability to predict accurately the effect of environmental change (e.g. urbanisation, land-use change, river training and climate change) is unknown
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