Abstract
Rainfall-runoff modelling in small and ungauged basins represents one of the most common practices in hydrology. 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.
Highlights
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutralGlobal climate change has had a growing impact on water resources management and drought hazard assessment, and the world population has paid the cost of meteorological hazards [1,2].In 2015, the United Nations encouraged economic, environmental, and social advancements in order to obtain a sustainable future for the entire world population, introducing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [3].Integrated water resources management is part of the SDGs, but today only 2.5% of all water on Earth can be used for human domestic needs [4]
STORAGE was first calibrated and validated under the hypothesis of stationary process. The results of this first step of rainfall analysis are reported on EV1 (Extreme Value distribution of type 1, named as Gumbel distribution) probabilistic plots (Figure 2) for annual maximum rainfall (AMR) series and on Gaussian plots (Figure 3) for the other investigated series
The trend analysis of considered metrics indicates an increasing drought been in area, a climate change previous context, selecting appropriate metrics for drought analin theanalyzed case study confirming studies [64,65]
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutralGlobal climate change has had a growing impact on water resources management and drought hazard assessment, and the world population has paid the cost of meteorological hazards [1,2].In 2015, the United Nations encouraged economic, environmental, and social advancements in order to obtain a sustainable future for the entire world population (in particular in a climate change context), introducing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [3].Integrated water resources management is part of the SDGs, but today only 2.5% of all water on Earth can be used for human domestic needs [4]. Global climate change has had a growing impact on water resources management and drought hazard assessment, and the world population has paid the cost of meteorological hazards [1,2]. In 2015, the United Nations encouraged economic, environmental, and social advancements in order to obtain a sustainable future for the entire world population (in particular in a climate change context), introducing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [3]. Integrated water resources management is part of the SDGs, but today only 2.5% of all water on Earth can be used for human domestic needs [4]. This aspect as increased researcher and practitioners’ interest on water scarcity and droughts. The first three categories with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call