9th
International Rainwater Catchment Systems Conference
"Rainwater
Catchment: An Answer to the Water Scarcity of the Next Millennium."
Petrolina, Brazil - July 1999
Section 3: Rainwater Catchment and Droughts
Paper 3.2
Potential Benefits of Tropical Seasonal Rainfall
Forecasting for Rainwater Catchment Systems
Carlos Oliveira Galvão & Robin T. Clarke
Department of Civil Engineering
Federal University of Paraíba
Caixa Postal 505
Campina Grande, PB 58100-970, Brazil
E-mail: galvao@rechid.ufpb.br
Abstract
Much work has been done recently on interannual and seasonal
rainfall forecasting for the tropics. Such forecasts are usually reliable at a
regional or macro scale, but are less successful at the meso- or local scales,
which are of interest for rainwater catchment systems. Methods are needed for
the transfer of seasonal rainfall forecasts to the management of rainwater
catchment systems and for evaluating their performance. This paper addresses
the topic and presents an approach for transferring forecasts from regional to
basin or local scales and an evaluation of their skill (as defined in the
paper) for the Brazilian Nordeste. The results show that forecast skill decays
as the scale becomes smaller and that forecasts are still of limited use at the
local scale. On the other hand, they can be immediately useful for regional
early warning applications, as well as for the management of larger rainwater
catchment systems, such as those of large reservoirs.
PDF of full document available
to members (6pp, 40kb)
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