Cotecchia V.; Casarano D.; Polemio M.;, 2004, Characterization of rainfall trend and drought periods in Southern Italy from 1821 to 2001, 1st Italian-Russian Workshop “New Trends in Hydrology”, pp. 139–150, Rende (CS), 2004,
URL: http://www.cnr.it/prodotto/i/88683

A statistical study is conducted on Southern Italy rainfall data monitored from 1821 to 2001. The study area includes the Apulia, Campania, Calabria and Basilicata regions. 126 rain gauges of the Italian Hydrologic Service, with almost complete time series, were selected in order to obtain the spatial continuity of the description. The main study period, for which reliable and gap-free annual data series are available, is considered from 1921 to 2001. The annual rainfall trend is determined considering the regression line of each time series. A widespread decreasing trend (negative slope) of annual rainfall is observed over 96% of the study area. This trend is worse where mean annual rainfall is higher. A decreasing trend of less than -9 mm/year is found at worst. Time analysis of the historic series shows that this trend is emphasised after 1980; in this context, more recent droughts, 1988-92 and 2000-2001, are characterised. Enlarging the dataset considering also data from 1821 to 1920 (with the limitations due to the low number of available rain gauges) confirms the trends resulting from the previous analysis.

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