Estimation of rainfall distribution for the southwestern region of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Rainfall is the most important input parameter for water resource planning and hydrological studies because flood risk assessment, rainfall harvesting and runoff estimation depend on the rainfall distribution within a region. Due to practical and economic factors, it is not possible to site rainfall stations everywhere, so representative rainfall stations are sited at specific locations. Rainfall distribution is then estimated from such stations. In this study, rainfall distribution in the southwestern region of Saudi Arabia was estimated using kriging, co-kriging and inverse distance weighted (IDW) methods. Historical records of rainfall from 47 stations for the period 1965–2010 and the altitude of these stations were used. The study shows that co-kriging is a better interpolator than the kriging and IDW methods, with a better correlation between actual and estimated monthly average rainfall for the region.