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Changing Pattern of Intensity–Duration–Frequency Relationship of Precipitation due to Climate Change

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Abstract

Intensification of hydrologic cycle, and consequence rise of intense short-term precipitation, are considered as the manifestations of climate change. This may lead to an alteration in Intensity–Duration–Frequency (IDF) relationship that may change other hydrological processes as well. The IDF relationship also serves as a crucial information for the design of any water infrastructure. This study investigates the spatiotemporal changes in IDF relationship involving hourly precipitation events between past and future climate at various return periods across India that spans over a wide range of climatology. Contrast between historical (1979–2014), using two reanalysis data, and future periods (immediate future: 2015–2039, near-future: 2040–2059 and far-future: 2060–2100) is explored along with its spatial (re-) distribution. The future simulations of precipitation are derived from three climate models, participating in 6th phase of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), for three shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs), i.e., SSP126, SSP245 and SSP585. The results show that almost entire Indian mainland will experience an increase (~41–44%) in the hourly precipitation intensity under the worst climate change scenario (SSP585) with a return period as low as 2 years (almost a regular incidence). Furthermore, even under a moderate climate change scenario (SSP245), almost entire Indian mainland (~82–99% of spatial extent) will be affected from a significant increase (on an average 19%) in the hourly precipitation intensity. It is true for higher return periods as well. Findings of the study are alarming for many water infrastructures. This study develops new set of IDF curves across India considering a changing climate that will be useful to set a revised design criteria for water infrastructure.

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Availability of Data and Material

Hourly precipitation data are obtained from both the reanalysis datasets, i.e., ERA5 (https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/reanalysis-era5-single-levels accessed in August 2021) and IMDAA (https://rds.ncmrwf.gov.in/home/ accessed in August 2021). The model simulated daily precipitation values are downloaded from the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) (https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/projects/cmip6/ accessed in August 2021).

Code Availability

The codes required for the analysis are written in MATLAB R2018a (version 9.4). The codes may be available on request from the authors.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge NCMRWF, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, for IMDAA reanalysis (Rani et al. 2021). IMDAA reanalysis was produced under the collaboration between UK Met Office, NCMRWF, and IMD with financial support from the Ministry of Earth Sciences, under the National Monsoon Mission programme. We are also grateful to ECMWF for making available ERA5 reanalysis datasets (Hersbach et al. 2020). The results contain modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2020.

Funding

This work is partially supported by the Ministry of Earth Science, Government of India through a sponsored project.

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Contributions

Conceptualization: RM; Methodology: SSM, RM; Formal analysis and investigation: SSM, RM; Writing - original draft preparation: SSM; Writing - review and editing: RM; Funding acquisition: RM; Resources: RM; Supervision: RM.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rajib Maity.

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Maity, S.S., Maity, R. Changing Pattern of Intensity–Duration–Frequency Relationship of Precipitation due to Climate Change. Water Resour Manage 36, 5371–5399 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-022-03313-y

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