Estimating extreme dry spell risk in Ichkeul Lake Basin (Northern Tunisia): a comparative analysis of annual maxima series with a Gumbel distribution

Abstract

Abstract. This paper analyses a 42 year time series of daily precipitation in Ichkeul Lake Basin (northern Tunisia) in order to predict extreme dry-spell risk. Dry events are considered as a sequence of dry days separated by rainfall events from each other. Thus the rainy season is defined as a series of rainfall and subsequent dry events. Rainfall events are defined as the uninterrupted sequence of rainy days, when at last on one day more than a threshold amount of rainfall has been observed. A comparison of observed and estimated maximum dry events (42 year return period) showed that Gumbel distribution fitted to annual maximum series gives better results than the exponential (E) distribution combined with partial duration series (PDS). Indeed, the classical Gumbel approach slightly underestimated the empirical duration of dry events. The AMS–G approach was successfully applied in the study of extreme hydro-climatic variable values. The results reported here could be applied in estimating climatic drought risks in other geographical areas.