The Spanish Mediterranean Basin (SMB) have experienced an increase of urbanization resulting from the socioeconomic growth of the last five decades. Consequently, flood prone areas have been intensively occupied and have become more vulnerable to this hazard. In this framework, we analyze the intensity and distribution of precipitation associated to floods occurred in the coastal municipalities of the region between 1960 and 2012, according to the SMC-Flood database (https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-1955-2019).
Our study uses this database and a Principal Component Analysis technique to identify significant patterns and correlations between the damage produced by the floods, the main synoptic patterns during those days (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150777) obtained from the 20th Century Reanalysis V3 project and the precipitation from the SPREAD database (https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-9-721-2017).
Regarding the synoptic analysis, 12 different patterns explain most of the variance of the surface pressure. Additionally, the provinces from Girona to Almería are more commonly affected by eastern airflows in autumn, mainly owing to the warm and moist Mediterranean air transportation; whereas the prevailing wind in the most southwestern provinces (Cádiz, Málaga and Granada) is from the south and it is frequently associated to Atlantic low-pressure centres. Yet, it is found that the northern provinces of the SMB can be also affected by the latter configuration.
Regarding the precipitation, 9 different patterns associated to different regions along the SMB are obtained. The matching between both types of patterns (synoptic and precipitation) is performed according to the flood events statistically related to each of them.
Finally, from the analysis it can be concluded that the provinces of Granada, Almería and Barcelona are more exposed to this hazard, as low average rainfall values and high mean severity indexes are identified; and also, that the patterns presenting an Atlantic trough tend to provide more precipitation and more severe events.
How to cite: Cuixart, M., Peña, J. C., Gil-Guirado, S., Pérez-Morales, A., Serrano-Notivoli, R., and Pino, D.: Analyzing precipitation distribution and intensity related to floods in the Spanish Mediterranean basin since 1960, EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-359, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-359, 2022.
