A baseline assessment of hydrologic alteration degree for the Mexican catchments at gauged rivers (2016).

River regime has been modified in several freshwater bodies around the world. This alteration has led to species loss, water pollution, higher or lesser economic profits, changes in magnitude, timing, duration and rate change of flow, among others. Thus, hydrologic alteration assessment allows evaluating the regime parameters so that stakeholders, decision-makers, and dams managers may take efficient actions to mitigate or rehabilitate riparian ecosystems. In the present study, Hydrologic Alteration Indexes on Rivers (IAHRIS, for its acronym in Spanish) and the Mexican standard approach were considered to evaluate 1150 gauged catchments in Mexico and come up with an alteration baseline for 67.03% of the country surface. The comparison may assist stakeholders to propose potential changes in the Mexican standard approach. Results reveal that 232 analyzed catchments can be considered as non-altered according to IAHRIS. In stark contrast, there are 281 non-altered catchments in Mexico in agreement with the official standard approach. Altered catchments are mainly impacted by minimum flow metrics and connectivity discharge. Additionally, the correlation between alteration indexes and 5 socio-economic variables was checked to identify which variables may greatly impact hydrologic alteration evolution or mitigation. From the five selected variables, the Human Development Index is significatively correlated to extreme minimum metrics (p = 0.94) while the Gross Domestic Product to extreme maximum metrics (p = 0.90).

From point to areal rainfall: linking the different approaches for the frequency characterisation of rainfalls in urban areas.

In urban water design and management, many hydrologic problems involve the frequency characterisation of rainfalls. Hydrologists are commonly asked to evaluate rainfall intensities for given recurrence frequencies or to indicate how rare an observed event is by estimating its return period. This study aims to improve the characterisation of rainfall hazard over a city by linking point to areal rainfall frequency analysis. We use a stochastic rainfall field generator based on the turning-bands method directly to assess areal rainfall distributions and to illustrate the link between different approaches. The simulating algorithm is applied to rainfall data from the city of Marseilles. The frequency analysis of simulated fields provides the elements to deal with the notions of return period and severity of observed storm events. The study concludes on the importance of a unified approach to assess rainfall better.