1. Detecting the effect of urban land use on extreme precipitation in the Netherlands
- Author
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Yijian Zeng, Zhongbo Su, Chris M. Mannaerts, Vahid Rahimpour Golroudbary, Department of Water Resources, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, and UT-I-ITC-WCC
- Subjects
Atmospheric Science ,010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,0208 environmental biotechnology ,Geography, Planning and Development ,02 engineering and technology ,Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law ,lcsh:QC851-999 ,01 natural sciences ,Trend analysis ,Urban climate ,Spatial pattern ,Precipitation ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Urban land use ,Land use ,Rain gauge ,The Netherlands ,Block (meteorology) ,FTPW ,020801 environmental engineering ,Geography ,Climatology ,Common spatial pattern ,lcsh:Meteorology. Climatology ,Precipitation extremes ,Rural area ,ITC-GOLD ,Indices - Abstract
A notable increase in heavy precipitation has been observed over the Netherlands in recent decades. The aim of this study was to assess the influences of urban land use on these extreme precipitation patterns. Significant differences between an earlier multi-decadal period and a recent period were found in the Netherlands between 1961 and 2014. The significant changes in different indices indicate that severe precipitation events were not distributed homogeneously across the study area. The precipitation probability and distribution were assessed using the block maxima approach by comparing observations from urban and rural areas at different timescales. The possible effects of land use on extreme precipitation were assessed by quantifying the differences between urban and rural rain gauge stations according to the spatial gridding method. This study shows that urban land use may have affected the extreme precipitation patterns across the Netherlands. The data from all the categorized stations show that urban areas receive more intense extreme precipitation than do rural areas. Relative to other areas in the Netherlands, the urban areas in the western populated regions of the country exhibit prominent urban land use influences on the extreme precipitation patterns.
- Published
- 2017