| |
AVI 080 Project "ACROSS" |
"Analyzed Climatology of Rainfall Obtained from Satellite and Surface data
for the Mediterranean Basin"
by G. Boni and L.G. Lanza
The increasing interest on the Mediterranean area is mainly due to the peculiar meteorological charatreristics. Countries facing the Mediterranean sea have common problems related both to drought periods and heavy storms. The increasing population density along the coastal regions and the related problem of heavy exploitation of water resources lead necessarily toward an increasing interest on the evaluation of these resources in order to assess the level of sustainable development in the region. On the other hand the increasing urbanization of the lower part of the river basins draining to the Mediterranean enhance the level of risk and the amount of damages due to flood events.
As a consequence a better definition of the rainfall climatology of the Mediterranean basin on the basis of both traditional and modern rainfall observation techniques becomes a primary need for the planning of any development policy in the Mediterranean Countries.
The aim of the work performed within task 1.1 was the collection of all the available rainfall data for a period of 17 years (1978-1994) from all the Mediterranean countries and to organize the database of the climatological records collected.
Since the study of the climatology of rainfall concern water resources management, a suitable description of the climatology of the area not need only the estimation of averaged quantities but also the description of the extremes (storms and droughts). For this reason the database of the rainfall data must be organized in two sections: continuous climatological records (at daily scale) and extreme events (at hourly scale).
