On the scaling behavior of rain event sequence recorded in Basilicata region (Southern Italy)

Rain events can be described in terms of point processes, analogously to other geophysical phenomena, such as earthquakes or avalanches. Power-law behaviors have been identified in the distribution of sizes, of rain event durations and drought durations, with scaling exponents 1.4, 2.4 and 1.3, respectively. Time-fractal approaches, like Fano Factor and Allan Factor, well suited to reveal scaling behavior in point processes, allow to detect power-law behavior in rainfall data, pointing out to the presence of clustering in the time distribution of the sequence of rain events. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.