“In-site” regionalization to estimate an intensity-duration-frequency law: a solution to scarce spatial data in Spain

The study of annual maximum rainfall intensity is quite difficult in Spain due to its limited recording rain gauges and short record lengths. This problem can't be solved applying classical regional approach, since scarce stations and great climate variability prevents forming homogeneous regions. The present study tries a new way of applying regionalization, a method which improves robustness, joining series with different durations (≤1 hour, > 1 hour) at the same station to form regions. Besides, the SQRT-ETmáx distribution is used due to extreme rainfall intensity in the Mediterranean area is not under Gumbel law domain. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.