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M.L. Leite & J.S.V. Filho2010. Analysis of rainfall in the Vila Velha State Park, State of Parana, Southern Brazil
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2. Methodology
Daily rainfall data (mm) were obtained from the Meteorological Station, belonging to the
Instituto Agronômico do Paraná (IAPAR), located in the State Park of Vila Velha, on the
geographical coordinates of 25°13'S, 50°01' W and 880 m of altitude. The data were collected
from January 1954 to December 2001, constituting a series of 48 years. The State Park of Vila
Velha, has an area of 3,122.11 hectares and is situated in the city of Ponta Grossa, State of
Paraná, Southern Brazil (see Figure 1). The main access is the BR-376, an important road
junction that connects the shores, Curitiba (the State capital) and the North of the Paraná State.
Ponta Grossa is located in the Second Parana Plateau and is situated in an area of grassland
(short grass steppe) with clumps of forest of Araucaria. Because of this phytogeographical
feature, the region where Ponta Grossa is located is called the Campos Gerais Region of Paraná
State (Maack, 1981). Initially, the daily rainfall data were subjected to screening and assessment
of consistency of time series. To assess whether there was any particular trend related to the
annual totals of rainfall, there was used the concept of moving average, calculated by cycles of
five years. After that, it was proceeded the frequency analisys of the days with rain in each
month of the series. The days with climatological drought (Leaves & Fisch, 2006) were
excluded and the remaining data were divided into class intervals of rainfall. From there, they
were classified in relation to the intensity of cumulative daily rainfall as: drizzle (0.1 to 2.5 mm),
light rain (2.5 to 10.0 mm), moderate rain (10.0 to 25.0 mm), heavy rain (from 25.0 to 50.0 mm)
and extreme rain (above 50 mm) (Calvetti et. al., 2006). It was also evaluated the annual totals
of rainfall and annual totals of days with rain and climatological drought.
Figure 1: Location of Vila Velha State Park
Forest Landscapes and Global Change-New Frontiers in Management, Conservation and Restoration. Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology
Working Group International Conference, September 21-27, 2010, Bragança, Portugal. J.C. Azevedo, M. Feliciano, J. Castro & M.A. Pinto (eds.)
2010, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal.