Summary
For assessing risk of highly unusual events extreme value statistics needs to be applied, which plays an important role in engineering practices for water resources design and management. In hydrology, the typical application of extreme value theory concerns floods in river basins or landslides. The present paper is, instead, focused on the analysis of extreme wet and dry periods in a sample area (Sicily). First, we have studied monthly precipitation extremes both using the annual maximum and partial duration methods, and return times have been estimated by standard statistical techniques. Next, we studied the extremes of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), which has been proposed as an indicator for monitoring wet and dry conditions. We found considerable differences both in the return periods and in the time location of the extremes. From our study it appears that the SPI better describes wet and dry periods than the precipitation does. Maps of return times for extreme conditions in Sicily are also presented, which cluster the territory into areas of different extreme return periods. Finally, the occurrence of extremes in Sicily has been related to large-scale atmospheric circulation.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alecci S, Arcidiacono F, Bonaccorso B, Rossi G (2000) Identificazione delle siccità regionali e sistemi di monitoraggio, Atti del Convegno Siccità: monitoraggio, mitigazione, effetti. Villasimius, 21–23 Settembre 2000
AA Balkema L de Haan (1974) ArticleTitleResidual lifetime at great age Ann Probab 2 792–804
S Beguería (2005) ArticleTitleUncertainties in partial duration series modelling of extremes related to the choice of the threshold value J Hydrol 303 215–230 Occurrence Handle10.1016/j.jhydrol.2004.07.015
I Bordi A Sutera (2001) ArticleTitleFifty years of precipitation: some spatially remote teleconnections Water Resour Manag 15 247–280 Occurrence Handle10.1023/A:1013353822381
S Coles (2001) An introduction to statistical modelling of extreme values Springer London 200
RA Fisher LHC Tippett (1928) ArticleTitleLimiting forms of the frequency distributions of the largest or smallest member of a sample Cambridge Philos Soc 24 180–190 Occurrence Handle10.1017/S0305004100015681
NB Guttman (1999) ArticleTitleAccepting the Standardised Precipitation Index: a calculation algorithm J Amer Water Resources Assn 35 311–322
BM Hill (1975) ArticleTitleA simple general approach to inference about the tail of a distribution Ann Stat 3 1163–1174
JRM Hosking JR Wallis (1987) ArticleTitleParameter and quantile estimation for the Generalised Pareto distribution Technometrics 29 339–349 Occurrence Handle10.2307/1269343
AF Jenkinson (1955) ArticleTitleThe frequency distribution of the annual maximum (or minimum) of meteorological elements Quart J Roy Meteor Soc 81 158–171
Kalnay et al. (1996) ArticleTitleThe NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project Bull Amer Meteor Soc 77 437–471 Occurrence Handle10.1175/1520-0477(1996)077<0437:TNYRP>2.0.CO;2
RW Kats MB Parlange P Naveau (2002) ArticleTitleStatistics of extremes in hydrology Adv Water Resour 25 1287–1304 Occurrence Handle10.1016/S0309-1708(02)00056-8
McKee TB, Doesken NJ, Kleist J (1993) The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scales, Preprints, 8th Conference on Applied Climatology, 17–22 January, Anaheim, CA, pp 179–184
J Pickands (1975) ArticleTitleStatistical inference using extreme order statistics Ann Stat 3 119–131
TC Piechota JA Dracup (1996) ArticleTitleDrought and regional hydrologic variation in the United States: Associations with El Nino-Southern Oscillation Water Resour Res 32 IssueID5 1359–1373 Occurrence Handle10.1029/96WR00353
T Tadesse DA Wilhite SK Harms MJ Hayes S Goddard (2004) ArticleTitleDrought monitoring using data mining techniques: a case study for Nebraska, USA Nat Hazards 33 137–159 Occurrence Handle10.1023/B:NHAZ.0000035020.76733.0b
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bordi, I., Fraedrich, K., Petitta, M. et al. Extreme value analysis of wet and dry periods in Sicily. Theor. Appl. Climatol. 87, 61–71 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-005-0195-3
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-005-0195-3