1,2,3,1,4,- 1Hydrologie Météorologie et Complexité, École nationale des ponts et chaussées, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Champs-sur-Marne, France (auguste.gires@enpc.fr)
- 2Department of Land Environment Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
- 3Department of Geosciences, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
- 4Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK
Quantifying rainfall extremes and their temporal evolution is essential for hydrological risk analysis and infrastructure design, and is commonly based on intensity–duration–frequency (IDF) curves. In this study, we further develop the framework proposed by Bendjoudi et al. (1997), in which IDF curves are theoretically derived within the Universal Multifractals (UM) formalism. This approach is mathematically robust and parsimonious, and is grounded in the physically based concept of scale invariance inherited from the Navier–Stokes equations.
Relying on either a unique scaling regime or two scaling regimes with a break at roughly 14 days, and the existence of a multifractal phase transition associated with moment divergence, IDF curves can be derived where rainfall intensity follows a power-law relationship with both return period (positive exponent) and duration (inverse exponent). The values of the exponents and of a prefactor can be directly inferred from the UM characterization of the rainfall process.
The framework was tested using rain-gauge data from six stations in Northern Italy, with record lengths ranging from 30 to 38 years. The agreement between the theoretically predictions from the UM analysis and the observed values of the prefactor and the two exponents, according to the quality of the scaling, is discussed. Possible directions for further improvements of the framework will also be discussed.
Authors acknowledge the France-Taiwan Ra2DW project for financial support (grant number by the French National Research Agency – ANR-23-CE01-0019-01).
References:
Bendjoudi H., Hubert P., Schertzer D., Lovejoy S., 1997, Interprétation multifractale des courbes intensité-durée-fréquence des précipitations, Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences - Series IIA - Earth and Planetary Science, 325, 5, 323-326,https://doi.org/10.1016/S1251-8050(97)81379-1
How to cite: Gires, A., Dallan, E., Marra, F., Schertzer, D., and Tchiguirinskaia, I.: Universal Multifractals characterization of Intensity-Duration-Frequency curves, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-14683, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-14683, 2026.
