Alain Mailhot

Areas of expertise

Urban hydrology

Associate Professor

Phone
418-654-3821

Email
alain.mailhot@inrs.ca

Eau Terre Environnement Research Centre

490 de la Couronne Street
Québec City, Quebec G1K 9A9
CANADA

See the research centre

Research interests

Storm water management and climate change: The increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will affect rainfall patterns, including the likelihood of extreme rainfall events. These changes will have a long-term impact on the performance of existing storm water management systems and those that will be built in coming decades. To address this issue, Professor Mailhot’s research work analyzes the impacts of climate change on current storm water management methods and systems and assesses the ability of adaptation measures to maintain an adequate level of performance over the long term.

Hydroclimatic series analysis: Statistical analysis of observed hydroclimatic data series, including precipitation series, is important since the results of such analyses are often used in the design of hydraulic structures, and more generally in risk management. In the context of climate change, these analyses are also useful to detect trends in historical series. This type of analysis is also essential in the development of future scenarios concerning climate variables (including precipitation) based on the results of climate models. Professor Mailhot’s research work focuses on analysis of both observed data series and those produced by regional and global climate models.

Hydrological modelling uncertainties: Operational use of the results of a hydrological model, whether for flood forecasting or flood risk area estimation, must take into account the uncertainties associated with those results. Several sources of uncertainty have to be taken into account: uncertainties in input data and model parameters, structural errors in the model, etc. Professor Mailhot works to develop and test approaches to estimating the uncertainties in model results taking into account the uncertainties in the model’s inputs. An application of the HYDROTEL model to a watershed in Quebec is used to test these approaches.

Publications

ORCID

Pérez Bello, Alexis, Mailhot, Alain & Paquin, Dominique (2021). The response of daily and sub-daily extreme precipitations to changes in surface and dew-point temperatures. J. Geophys. Res. – Atmosphere, 126 (16): Art. e2021JD034972.
DOI: 10.1029/2021JD034972

Vaittinada Ayar, Pradeebane & Mailhot, Alain (2021). Evolution of dry and wet spells under climate change over North-Eastern North America. J. Geophys. Res. – Atmosphere, 126 (5): Art. e2020JD033740.
DOI: 10.1029/2020JD033740

Vaittinada Ayar, Pradeebane; Vrac, Mathieu & Mailhot, Alain (2021). Ensemble bias correction of climate simulations: preserving internal variability. Scientific Reports, 11 (1): Art. 3098.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-82715-1

Khedhaouiria, Dikra; Mailhot, Alain & Favre, Anne-Catherine (2020). Regional modeling of daily precipitation fields across the Great Lakes region (Canada) using the CFSR reanalysis. Stoch. Environ. Res. Risk Asses., 34: 1385-1405.
DOI: 10.1007/s00477-019-01722-x

Martel, Jean-Luc; Mailhot, Alain & Brissette, François (2020). Global and regional projected changes in 100-yr subdaily, daily, and multiday precipitation extremes estimated from three large ensembles of climate simulations. J. Climate, 33 (3): 1089-1103.
DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0764.1

Pérez Bello, Alexis & Mailhot, Alain (2020). Improving the representation of historical climate precipitation indices using optimal interpolation methods. Atmos. Ocean, 58 (4): 243-257.
DOI: 10.1080/07055900.2020.1800444

El-Housni, Hind; Duchesne, Sophie & Mailhot, Alain (2019). Predicting individual hydraulic performance of sewer pipes in context of climate change. J. Water Res. Plan. Manage., 145 (11): Art. 04019051.
DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0001127

Innocenti, Silvia; Mailhot, Alain; Frigon, Anne; Cannon, Alex J. & Leduc, Martin (2019). Observed and simulated precipitation over northeastern North America: how do daily and sub-daily extremes scale in space and time?. J. Climate, 32: 8563-8582.
DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0021.1

Innocenti, Silvia; Mailhot, Alain; Leduc, Martin; Cannon, Alex J. & Frigon, Anne (2019). Projected changes in the probability distributions, seasonality, and spatiotemporal scaling of daily and subdaily extreme precipitation simulated by a 50-member ensemble over northeastern North America. J. Geophys. Res. – Atmosphere, 124 (9): 10427-10449.
DOI: 10.1029/2019JD031210

Leduc, Martin; Mailhot, Alain; Frigon, Anne; Martel, Jean-Luc; Ludwig, Ralf; Brietzke, Gilbert B.; Giguère, Michel; Brissette, François; Turcotte, Richard; Braun, Marco & Scinocca, John (2019). ClimEx project: a 50-member ensemble of climate change projections at 12-km resolution over Europe and northeastern North America with the 3 Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5). J. Appl. Meteorol. Clim., 58 (4): 663-693.
DOI: 10.1175/JAMC-D-18-0021.1

Diaconescu, Emilia Paula; Mailhot, Alain; Brown, Ross & Chaumont, Diane (2018). Evaluation of CORDEX-Arctic daily precipitation and temperature-based climate indices over Canadian Arctic land areas. Clim. Dynam., 50 (5-6): 2061-2085.
DOI: 10.1007/s00382-017-3736-4

Khedhaouiria, Dikra; Mailhot, Alain & Favre, Anne-Catherine (2018). Stochastic post-processing of CFSR daily precipitation across Canada. Atmos. Ocean, 56 (2): 104-116.
DOI: 10.1080/07055900.2018.1434122

Khedhaouiria, Dikra; Mailhot, Alain & Favre, Anne-Catherine (2018). Daily precipitation fields modeling across the Great Lakes region (Canada) by using the CFSR reanalysis. J. Appl. Meteorol. Clim., 57: 2419-2438.
DOI: 10.1175/JAMC-D-18-0019.1

Mailhot, Alain; Talbot, Guillaume; Ricard, S.; Turcotte, R. & Guinard, K. (2018). Assessing the potential impacts of dam operation on daily flow at ungauged river reaches. J. Hydrol. Regional Stud., 18: 156-167.
DOI: 10.1016/j.ejrh.2018.06.006

Martel, Jean-Luc; Mailhot, Alain; Brissette, François & Caya, Daniel (2018). Role of natural climate variability in the detection of anthropogenic climate change signal for mean and extreme precipitation at local and regional scales. J. Climate, 31: 4241-4263.
DOI: 10.1175/jcli-d-17-0282.1

Innocenti, Silvia; Mailhot, Alain & Frigon, Anne (2017). Simple scaling of extreme precipitations in North America. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21 (11): 5823-5846.
DOI: 10.5194/hess-21-5823-2017

Poan, Emmanuel D.; Gachon, Philippe; Dueymes, Guillaume; Diaconescu, Emilia Paula; Laprise, René; Seidou Sanda, Ibrah; Mailhot, Alain; Chaumont, Diane & Brown, Ross (2016). West African monsoon intraseasonal activity and its daily precipitation indices in regional climate models: diagnostics and challenges. Clim. Dynam., 47 (9-10): 3113-3140.
DOI: 10.1007/s00382-016-3016-8

Fortier, C. & Mailhot, A. (2015). Climate change impact on combined sewer overflows. J. Water Res. Plan. Manage., 141 (5): 04014073.
DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000468

Guinard, K.; Mailhot, A. & Caya, D. (2015). Projected changes in characteristics of precipitation spatial structures over North America. Int. J. Climatol., 35 (4): 596-612.
DOI: 10.1002/joc.4006

Mailhot, A.; Talbot, G. & Lavallée, B. (2015). Relationships between rainfall and Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) occurrences. J. Hydrol., 523: 602-609.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.01.063