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Assessment of Trends in Extreme Precipitation Events: A Case Study in Piedmont (North-West Italy)

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Abstract

Intensification of heavy precipitation as discussed in climate change studies has become a public concern, but it has not yet been examined well with observed data, particularly with data at short temporal scale like hourly and sub-hourly data. The original data set was retrieved by using an automated recovery approach. We chose four stations, namely, Vercelli (since 1927), Bra (since 1933), Lombriasco (since 1939) and Pallanza (since 1950) which are located in the northwest of Italy. We assessed trends for durations from 5 min to 12 h in seasonal, annual maxima, and number and magnitude of exceedances of the 95th percentile. Split sample tests have been undertaken to assess differences in quantile estimates derived using a Generalised Pareto distribution fitted to Peaks-Over-Threshold series. The statistical analyses performed include parametric and non-parametric tests. Mostly, we cannot reject the trend stationarity hypothesis. There is no uniform trend on extreme events in the whole area. However, some trends are evident and significant for specific stations and specific indices. Specifically, it is obvious that extreme rainfall events have risen in the last 20 years only for short durations.

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Acknowledgments

This study was carried out as part of the STRADA project funded under the Cross-border Cooperation Programme INTERREG 2007–2013 Italy-Switzerland. We would like to thank prof. Younes Alila (University of British Columbia-Canada) for his insightful comments in this research. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers whose suggestions allowed us to improve the presentation of our results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Research Council – Institute of Ecosystem Study, Largo Tonolli 50, 28922, Verbania, Italy

    Helmi Saidi, Marzia Ciampittiello & Claudia Dresti

  2. Department of Earth Science, Cagliari University, Via Trentino 51, 09126, Cagliari, Italy

    Giorgio Ghiglieri

  3. Desertification Research Group (NRD), Sassari University, Sassari, Italy

    Giorgio Ghiglieri

Authors
  1. Helmi Saidi
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  2. Marzia Ciampittiello
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  3. Claudia Dresti
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  4. Giorgio Ghiglieri
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Correspondence to Helmi Saidi.

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Saidi, H., Ciampittiello, M., Dresti, C. et al. Assessment of Trends in Extreme Precipitation Events: A Case Study in Piedmont (North-West Italy). Water Resour Manage 29, 63–80 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-014-0826-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-014-0826-5

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