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Discovering historical rainfall erosivity with a parsimonious approach: A case study in Western Germany

Diodato, Nazzareno and Borrelli, Pasquale and Peter, Fiener and Bellocchi, Gianni and Romano, Nunzio. (2017) Discovering historical rainfall erosivity with a parsimonious approach: A case study in Western Germany. Journal of Hydrology, 544. pp. 1-9.

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Official URL: http://edoc.unibas.ch/52873/

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Abstract

An in-depth analysis of the interannual variability of storms is required to detect changes in soil erosive power of rainfall, which can also result in severe on-site and off-site damages. Evaluating long-term rainfall erosivity is a challenging task, mainly because of the paucity of high-resolution historical precipitation observations that are generally reported at coarser temporal resolutions (e.g., monthly to annual totals). In this paper we suggest overcoming this limitation through an analysis of long-term processes governing rainfall erosivity with an application to datasets available the central Ruhr region (Western Germany) for the period 1701–2011. Based on a parsimonious interpretation of seasonal rainfall-related processes (from spring to autumn), a model was derived using 5-min erosivity data from 10 stations covering the period 1937–2002, and then used to reconstruct a long series of annual rainfall erosivity values. Change-points in the evolution of rainfall erosivity are revealed over the 1760s and the 1920s that mark three sub-periods characterized by increasing mean values. The results indicate that the erosive hazard tends to increase as a consequence of an increased frequency of extreme precipitation events occurred during the last decades, characterized by short-rain events regrouped into prolonged wet spells.
Faculties and Departments:05 Faculty of Science > Departement Umweltwissenschaften > Geowissenschaften > Umweltgeowissenschaften (Alewell)
UniBasel Contributors:Borrelli, Pasquale
Item Type:Article, refereed
Article Subtype:Research Article
Publisher:Elsevier
ISSN:0022-1694
e-ISSN:1879-2707
Note:Publication type according to Uni Basel Research Database: Journal article
Identification Number:
Last Modified:12 Oct 2017 06:39
Deposited On:12 Oct 2017 06:39

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