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.
Index Terms—Climate change, water management,
hydrology, hydro-meteorological modeling,
intensity-duration-frequency curves.
L. A. Yousef is with the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology,
Abu Dhabi, UAE (e-mail: layousef@ masdar.ac.ae).
T. B. M. J. Ouarda was with the Department of Statistical Hydrology,
University of Quebec, Canada. He is now with the Department of Chemical
and Environmental Engineering, Masdar Institute of Science and
Technology, United Arab Emirates (e-mail: touarda@masdar.ac.ae).
Cite:Latifa A. Yousef and Taha B. M. J. Ouarda, "Adaptation of Water Resources Management to Changing Climate: The Role of Intensity-Duration-Frequency Curves," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 6, no. 6, pp. 478-483, 2015.