Spatial variability of precipitation extremes over Italy using a fine-resolution gridded product
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Rainfall, despite its countless benefits, is the main responsible of many hazards, such as droughts and floods, that every year cause loss of human lives, destruction of built-up areas, infrastructures and crops, and billion euros of damages all over the world. The impacts of these catastrophic events are expected to increase in the near future, due to the growth of population, uncontrolled urbanization, unsustainable land management policies and global warming. For these reasons, understanding, modelling, and predicting rainfall, especially its extreme events, is paramount for both scientists and politicians. The design of mitigation strategies to reduce the devastating impacts of such extreme events, requires reliable predictions of rainfall values by using a probabilistic approach. Our researchers, Dr. Benedetta Moccia, Prof. Fabio Russo and Prof. Francesco Napolitano, in collaboration with Prof. Simon Michael Papalexiou of the Global Institute for Water Security and University of Calgary (Canada) explored the reliability of one of the most commonly used distribution to describe the extremes, that is the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution, by using daily rainfall data provided by a fine-resolution satellite-based gridded product: CHIRPS. This study helps to increase awareness about the necessity of robust estimation of rainfall depths related to high return periods to alleviate the impacts of extreme precipitation over a vulnerable territory like Italy. Mre info:
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