Trends in characteristics of sub-daily heavy precipitation and rainfall erosivity in the Czech Republic

In this paper, we analyse observed changes in characteristics of sub-daily heavy summer precipitation and erosive precipitation events for the Czech Republic, taking into consideration 51 years of data (1961–2011) for 17 stations. The sub-daily data were checked for consistency with the daily control records, and unreliable data were removed from the data set. Subsequently, four statistical tests were applied to assess the homogeneity of the data set. The trend magnitude was estimated using the Theil–Sen slope estimator, and two tests were applied to evaluate its significance. For most of the indices, the tests did not indicate inhomogeneity, with the exception of characteristics related to rainfall intensity. The trends are positive for most of the stations and most precipitation characteristics, and significant positive trends are much more frequent than negative trends. The analysis revealed a significant increase in the contribution of heavy precipitation to the precipitation total in half of the stations at short aggregation levels.