Characterization of the rainfall intensity, duration and frequency for Catalonia

Researchers María del Carmen Casas Castillo and Raül Rodríguez Solà, from the DF-GeoTech research group at UPC, have published an article in the journal Climate, titled: "Scaling Properties of Rainfall as a Basis for Intensity–Duration–Frequency Relationships and Their Spatial Distribution in Catalunya, NE Spain". The study details the methodology developed by the group to obtain IDF (Intensity–Duration–Frequency) rainfall values, which are essential for hydrological applications and local-scale territorial planning.

This methodology had already been applied in the PhD thesis of Alba Llabrés Brustenga —supervised by Casas Castillo and Rodríguez Solà—, who at the time was a doctoral student at UPC. The results of this research were used by the Meteorological Service of Catalonia (SMC), which published the corresponding raster data layers on its website (IDF Maps). These data have also been included in the Hypermap of the Generalitat de Catalunya, as part of the publicly accessible climate information.

Thanks to this work, any citizen can easily consult IDF values for any location in Catalonia by entering the relevant parameters — with important applications in civil engineering, risk management, and climate change adaptation.

Reference:

Scaling properties of rainfall as a basis for intensity–duration–frequency relationships and their spatial distribution in Catalunya, NE Spain. 
MC Casas-Castillo, A Llabrés-Brustenga, R Rodríguez-Solà, A Rius, À Redaño
Climate, 13(2), 37 (2025).