Abstract
Generalised dimensionless temporal patterns of rainfall were developed using 17 yr-long hourly rainfall records from Tarapur, on the west coast of India, in conventional approach and without any synthetic tweaking of observed rainstorms. Higher percentile curves (higher intensity rainstorms), as well as lower duration rainstorms, produced steeper initial segments, reflecting site-specific rainstorm characteristics, typical for southwest monsoon rainfall occurring at Tarapur. Patterns derived at Tarapur differed from NRCS Type-III curves for tropical rainfall in US, which has the steepest segment in the middle. Compared to regional studies applicable for Tarapur, site-specific curves were conservative. A proposed risk metric indicated that local infrastructure and hydraulic elements might get underdesigned, if generic rainfall pattern is adopted. The curves thus generated would be inputs for development/augmentation of local infrastructure facilities, accommodating climate change scenarios, especially for important industrial or nuclear installations at and around Tarapur. This is the first study to analyse the departures of site-specific temporal distribution from generic rainfall curves available in literature, for tropical rainfall in the Indian subcontinent.
Research highlights
-
Site-specific temporal patterns of rainfall were generated and compared to generic curves for the first time in India, for Tarapur, a location on west coast of India.
-
When compared to the generic temporal patterns of rainfall applicable for Tarapur, the developed curves were usually conservative.
-
The generic temporal patterns were closer to 95 percentile of site-specific pattern till around first 20% duration of storm, and were closer to the 85 percentile pattern subsequently.
-
A risk metric is proposed for evaluation of the flooding risk of earlier designs based on generic temporal distribution of rainfall from literature or earlier site-specific distributions as well.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abdulrazzak M, Elfeki A, Kamis A S, Kassab M, Alamri N, Noor K and Chaabani A 2018 The impact of rainfall distribution patterns on hydrological and hydraulic response in arid regions: Case study Medina, Saudi Arabia; Arab. J. Geosci. 11 679, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-018-4043-z.
Al-Rawas G A and Valeo C 2009 Characteristics of rainstorm temporal distributions in arid mountainous and coastal regions; J. Hydrol. 376 318–326, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.07.044.
Amponsah A, Daraio J and Khan A A 2019 Implications of climatic variations in temporal precipitation patterns for the development of design storms in Newfoundland and Labrador; Can. J. Civ. Eng. 46(12) 1128–1141, https://doi.org/10.1139/cjce-2018-0563.
Awadallah A G and Younan N S 2012 Conservative design rainfall distribution for application in arid regions with sparse data; J. Arid Environ. 79 66–75, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2011.11.032.
Bayazit M and Onoz B 2007 To prewhiten or not to prewhiten in trend analysis?; Hydrol. Sci. J. 52(4) 611–624, https://doi.org/10.1623/hysj.52.4.611.
CWC-IMD-MoST (Central Water Commission, Indian Meteorological Department and Ministry of Surface Transport) 1992 Flood Estimation Report for West Coast Region Konkan and Malabar Coasts Sub zones – 5a & 5b; Report No. K&M/19/1992, Central Water Commission, Research Designs and Standards Organisation and India Meteorological Department and Ministry of Surface Transport (CWC-IMD-MoST), India.
Dahmen E R and Hall M J 1990 Screening of hydrological data: Tests for stationarity and relative consistency; Publication 49, International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement, The Netherlands.
Dauji S, Srivastava P K and Bhargava K 2017 Independence of monsoon rainstorms at western coastal site in India; IWRA (India) J. 6(2) 23–27.
Dauji S, Srivastava P K and Bhargava K 2018 Variation in ratio of maximum 1-hourly to 24-hourly rainfall at western coastal site in India; Disaster Adv. 11(11) 10–17.
Dauji S, Srivastava P K and Bhargava K 2021 Site-specific factors to derive maximum 1-hourly to 6-hourly continuous rainfall from daily extreme rainfall on west coast of India; Trans. Indian Nat. Acad. Eng. 6 857–867, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41403-021-00236-9.
Dullo T T, Kalyanapu A J and Teegavarapu R S V 2017 Evaluation of changing characteristics of temporal rainfall distribution within 24-hour duration storms and their influences on peak discharges: Case study of Asheville, North Carolina; J. Hydrol. Eng. 22(11) 1–17, https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0001575.
Elfeki A M, Ewea H A and Al-Amiri N S 2014 Development of storm hyetographs for flood forecasting in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Arab. J. Geosci. 7 4387–4398, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-013-1102-3.
El-Sayed E A H 2018 Development of synthetic rainfall distribution curves for Sinai area; Ain Shams Eng. J. 9 1949–1957, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2017.01.010.
Guhathakurta P and Rajeevan M 2008 Trends in the rainfall pattern over India; Int. J. Climatol. 28 1453–1469, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1640.
Guhathakurta P, Sreejith O P and Menon P A 2011 Impact of climate change on extreme rainfall events and flood risk in India; J. Earth Syst. Sci. 120 359–373, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-011-0082-5.
Guo J C and Hargadin K 2009 Conservative design rainfall distribution; J. Hydrol. Eng. 14(5) 528–530, https://doi.org/10.1061/_ASCE_HE.1943-5584.0000013.
Hamed K H 2009 Enhancing the effectiveness of prewhitening in trend analysis of hydrologic data; J. Hydrol. 368(1–4) 143–155, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.01.040.
Harshanth R 2018 Development of dimensionless mass curve for monsoon rainfall at a western coastal site in India; M.Tech. Dissertation, Homi Bhabha National Institute, Mumbai, India.
Harshanth R, Dauji S and Srivastava P K 2021a Evaluation of time discretisation of daily rainfall from the literature for a specific site; In: Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources (eds) Jha R et al., Water Science and Technology Library 98 207–221, Springer Nature, Switzerland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64202-0_19.
Harshanth R, Dauji S and Srivastava P K 2021b Accuracy of rainfall time distribution curves in literature for a coastal site near Mumbai, India; Earth Sci. India 14(1) 1–15, https://doi.org/10.31870/ESI.14.1.2021.1.
Harshanth R, Dauji S and Srivastava P K 2021c Quality checks on continuous rainfall records: A case study; In: Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources (eds) Jha R et al., Water Science and Technology Library 98 223–231, Springer Nature, Switzerland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64202-0_20.
Hershfield D M 1961 Estimating the probable maximum precipitation; J. Hydraul. Div. (ASCE) 87(5) 99–116, https://doi.org/10.1061/JYCEAJ.0000651.
Hershfield D M 1965 Method for estimating probable maximum rainfall; J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 57(8) 965–972, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1551-8833.1965.tb01486.x.
Huff F A 1967 Time distribution of rainfall in heavy storms; Water Resour. Res. 3(4) 1007–1019.
IMD-CWC (India Meteorological Department and Central Water Commission) 2015 PMP Atlas for west flowing rivers of Western Ghats; vol. 1, IMD-CWC, India.
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2021 Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers; Working Group I Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Geneva, Switzerland, ISBN 978-92-9169-158-6.
Khaladkar R M, Mahajan P N and Kulkarni J R 2009 Alarming rise in the number and intensity of extreme point rainfall events over the Indian Region under climate change scenario; RR 123, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, ISSN 0252-1075, http://www.imdpune.gov.in/Clim_Pred_LRF_New/Reports.html.
Kumar K R, Sahai A K, Kumar K K, Patwardhan S K, Mishra P K, Revadekar J V, Kamala K and Pant G B 2006 High-resolution climate change scenarios for India for the 21st century; Curr. Sci. 90(3) 334–345.
Map of India 2022 https://www.surveyofindia.gov.in/documents/polmap-eng-11012021.jpg.
Map of Maharashtra 2022 https://mrsac.gov.in/writereaddata/MRSAC/map/15223939915abde387d3c78A4_school.jpg.
Map of Palghar 2022 https://mrsac.gov.in/MRSAC/map/map.
Miao C, Ni J and Borthwick A G L 2010 Recent changes of water discharge and sediment load in the Yellow River basin, China; Progr. Phys. Geogr. Earth Environ. 34(4) 541–561, https://doi.org/10.1177/0309133310369434.
Morbidelli R, Garcia-Marin A P, Mamun A A et al. 2020 The history of rainfall data time-resolution in a wide variety of geographical areas; J. Hydrol. 590 125258, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125258.
Neale C M, Tay C C, Herrmann G R and Cleveland T G 2015 TXHYETO.XLS: A tool to facilitate use of Texas-specific hyetographs for design storm modeling; World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2015: Floods, Droughts, and Ecosystems, American Society of Civil Engineers, pp. 241–254, https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784479162.023.
NRCS (National Resources Conservation Service) 1986 Urban hydrology for small watersheds, Technical Release; TR-55, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Conservation Engineering Division, NRCS, Washington DC, USA.
Preethi B, Mujumdar M, Kripalani R H, Prabhu A and Krishnan R 2017 Recent trends and teleconnections among south and east Asian summer monsoons in a warming environment; Clim. Dyn. 48 2489–2505, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3218-0.
Razavi S and Vogel R 2018 Prewhitening of hydroclimatic time series? Implications for inferred change and variability across time scales; J. Hydrol. 557 109–115, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.11.053.
Restrepo-Posada P J and Eagleson P S 1982 Identification of independent rainfall rainstorms; J. Hydrol. 55 303–319.
Sen Z 2017 Hydrological trend analysis with innovative and over-whitening procedures; Hydrol. Sci. J. 62(2) 294–305, https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2016.1222533.
Serinaldi F and Kilsby C G 2016 The importance of prewhitening in change point analysis under persistence; Stoch. Environ. Res. Risk Assess. 30 763–777, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-015-1041-5.
Spiegel M R 1961 Theory and problems of statistics; Schaum Publishing Co., New York, USA, ISBN 978-0070602342.
Srivastava P K, Dauji S, Bhargava K, Agarwal K and Basu S 2014 Simulation of maximum hourly rainfall from daily rainfall of varied durations for a typical monsoon; In Proc., 5th International Congress on Computational Mechanics and Simulation, 10–13 December 2014, Chennai, India.
Srivastava P K, Dauji S and Bhargava K 2021 Site-specific rainfall analysis to generate design parameters: A case study; In Proc., 2nd International Conference on Futuristic and Sustainable Aspects in Engineering & Technology (FSAET 2021), December 24–26, 2021, Mathura, India.
Tung Y K and Yen B C 2005 Hydrosystems engineering uncertainty analysis; McGraw Hill, New York, USA, https://doi.org/10.1036/0071467084 (ISBN: 978-0071451598).
USACE (US Army Corps of Engineers) 1965 Standard Project Flood Determination; EM 1110-2-1411, Department of Army, USACE, Washington DC, USA.
von Storch H 1999 Misuses of statistical analysis in climate research; In: Analysis of climate variability (eds) von Storch H and Navarra A, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 11–26, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03744-7_2.
Wang F 2020 Temporal pattern analysis of local rainstorm events in China during the flood season based on time series clustering; Water 12(3) 725, https://doi.org/10.3390/w12030725.
Wartalska K and Kotowski A 2020 Model hyetographs of short-term rainfall for Wroclaw in the perspective of 2050; Atmosphere 11(6) 663, https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11060663.
Wartalska K, Kaźmierczak B, Nowakowska M and Kotowski A 2020a Precipitation patterns for modeling land drainage in Poland; Urban Water J. 17(4) 333–343, https://doi.org/10.1080/1573062X.2020.1781907.
Wartalska K, Kaźmierczak B, Nowakowska M and Kotowski A 2020b Analysis of hyetographs for drainage system modeling; Water 12(1) 149, https://doi.org/10.3390/w12010149.
Yue S and Wang C Y 2002 Applicability of prewhitening to eliminate the influence of serial correlation on the Mann–Kendall test; Water Resour. Res. 38(6) 1068, https://doi.org/10.1029/2001WR000861.
Yue S, Pilon P and Cavadias G 2002 Power of the Mann–Kendall and Spearman’s rho tests for detecting monotonic trends in hydrological series; J. Hydrol. 259(1–4) 254–271, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(01)00594-7.
Zhang S and Lu X X 2009 Hydrological responses to precipitation variation and diverse human activities in a mountainous tributary of the lower Xijiang, China; Catena 77(2) 130–142, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2008.09.001.
Acknowledgements
The authors take this opportunity to sincerely acknowledge the contribution of the officials at Environmental Survey Laboratory, Tarapur, India, for recording and providing high-quality rainfall data used for the study. The authors also appreciate Homi Bhabha National Institute authorities for granting permission to undertake part of this study for partial fulfilment of the requirements of award of M.Tech. degree to the first author from the Institute. The authors are sincerely indebted to the Editors and anonymous reviewers for their critical comments and suggestions, which significantly improved the technical content and clarity of the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
R Harshanth: Analysis of data and tabulation of results; Saha Dauji: Data acquisition, methodology, writing (text, tables, plots), risk metric method: analysis, results, and plots, location map preparation, additional literature review for revision, revision and formatting; P K Srivastava: Data acquisition, methodology, review and editing, location map acquisition, and revision. All authors read, corrected and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Additional information
Communicated by Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Harshanth, R., Dauji, S. & Srivastava, P.K. Development of site-specific time distribution pattern of rainfall for Tarapur, India. J Earth Syst Sci 132, 77 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-023-02086-1
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-023-02086-1