Heavy Rainfall Temporal Characterization in the Peri-Urban Solofrana River Basin, Southern Italy

Urban and peri-urban areas are increasingly called to face with the problem of an increased frequency of flooding events. One of the major issue is the evolving climate conditions. The current paper aims to investigate the temporal changes occurring in extreme rainfall within the Solofrana river basin (Southern Italy), is an about 200 Km2 peri-urban catchment, where flooding and landslides events occurred rather frequently, especially during the last years. Five rain-gauge stations data sub-hourly, hourly and daily rainfall data have been tested for temporal trend detection. Rainfall heights, compared to maximum annual average for different duration, increase on average of about 5-10% (on a ten year base) and, for a particular rain gauge station, up to 40%. The trends appear however significant only for two of the rain gauges, in particular for the two station located on the main relief of the investigated watershed.