Adaptation of Water Resources Management to Changing Climate: The Role of Intensity-Duration-Frequency Curves

Abstract

Climate change influences the intensity and frequency of precipitation events, causing the need for new strategies in water resources management. This paper presents the role of hydrology in helping to establish these new strategies, focusing specifically on rainfall intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves. A methodology is proposed for developing IDF curves using covariates of climate indices. A case study is presented for the station of Riviere Heva in Quebec, Canada. The IDF models incorporating climate indices exhibit significant improvements in terms of goodness of fit over the traditional models, forming the conclusion that design standards for water-related structures must be updated to incorporate climate change.