Exploring the impact of rainfall temporal distribution and critical durations on flood hazard modeling

Marcus N. Gomes (), Vijay Jalihal (), Maria Castro () and Eduardo M. Mendiondo ()
Additional contact information
Marcus N. Gomes: University of Sao Paulo
Vijay Jalihal: Vanderbilt University
Maria Castro: University of Arizona
Eduardo M. Mendiondo: University of Arizona

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2025, vol. 121, issue 9, No 38, 10989-11012

Abstract: Abstract Flood modeling is influenced by uncertainties from factors like soil infiltration characteristics, floodplain roughness, and spatio-temporal variations in rainfall volume, distribution, and intensities. Although multiple uncertain sources arise in flood modeling, the detailed evaluation of rainfall characteristics in flood mapping is not fully investigated. This paper addresses the role of rainfall temporal distribution on flood mapping by introducing a methodology that contrasts standard synthetic design storms and compares them to the 50th percentile rainfall temporal distribution derived from high-resolution 15-min observed rainfall data. The Alternating Blocks and the Huff rainfall temporal distribution methods were chosen as representative synthetic rainfall methods for flood mapping assessment. The framework was applied in a 131 km2 urban catchment in Bangalore, India. Evaluation of different rainfall temporal distributions reveals a potential 50% smaller areas with flood hazard, for the same return period and duration, simply by selecting a specific rainfall temporal that is not the critical for the catchment. This research not only underscores the importance of the effect of rainfall temporal distribution selection and assessment of the critical rainfall duration but also highlights the need for accurate data-driven methodologies in flood mapping, particularly in the face of urbanization and climate-induced complexities.

Keywords: Flood mapping; Huff curves; Alternated blocks method; Rainfall temporal distribution; Flood hazard (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-025-07186-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:121:y:2025:i:9:d:10.1007_s11069-025-07186-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-025-07186-3

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().