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    A nationally consistent approach to assessing accumulated rainfall rarity


    Eastman, Michael and Parry, Simon and Svensson, Cecilia and Hannaford, Jamie (2021) A nationally consistent approach to assessing accumulated rainfall rarity. Technical Report. UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology,, United Kingdom.

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    Official URL: https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/529618/


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    Abstract

    Accumulated rainfall totals are an important variable for a range of hydrological applications, including monitoring and forecasting, and long-term planning. For more than three decades, the National Hydrological Monitoring Programme (https://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/nhmp) at UKCEH has produced the monthly Hydrological Summary for the UK. A key component of this publication, a strategically important output with a wide readership, is a table of rainfall accumulations over a range of durations to present, and an assessment of the rarity of wet and dry periods in the context of rainfall data back to 1910. However, there is a need to update the methodology used to derive rainfall return periods, and to assess the rainfall frequencies more accurately, particularly from a low rainfall perspective. The aim of this report is to identify the most appropriate approach to quantifying return periods of long duration rainfall. The Data and Methods sections describe the data used to test the range of distributions and goodness-of-fit measures. Results are presented which identify the most appropriate distribution for nationally consistent applications, before the key findings are summarised

    Item Type: Monograph (Technical Report)
    Additional Information: The authors would like to thank Richard Davis and Ralph Ledbetter of the Environment Agency for their support developing and reviewing this research and subsequent report, as well as Sandie Clemas (UKCEH) for her helpful comments on a draft. This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) via two awards: (1) award number NE/R016429/1 (funding for the UK National Hydrological Monitoring Programme as part of the UK-SCAPE programme delivering National Capability); and (2) award number NE/L01061X/1, ‘Engaging diverse stakeholders and publics with outputs from the UK Drought and Water Scarcity Programme’ (ENDOWS).
    Keywords: rainfall analysis methods; monitoring and forecasting; long term water resources planning;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography
    Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units, ICARUS
    Item ID: 18816
    Depositing User: Corinne Voces
    Date Deposited: 03 Sep 2024 10:34
    Publisher: UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology,
    URI:
      Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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