New approaches to estimation of extreme rainfall

The extreme rainfall modeling is essential for the evaluation of the flood risk and the design of spillways. Despite the intense research and the accumulating availability of rainfall data, the uncertainty in the evaluation of the extreme rainfalls, continues to be high. Obviously, this uncertainty has a greater influence to the design of large-scale structures (dam spillways) than to the design of smaller flood control hydraulic works. This paper provides a review of the most recent methods for extreme rainfall estimation and presents their theoretical setting and their results in comparison with more classical methods, based on some applications in the design of hydraulic works in Greece. Finally, a software package (Hydrognomon) that supports the use of the methods is presented.