Average Areal Precipitation by Percentage Weighted Polygon Method
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 3, Issue 1
Abstract
A percentage weighting (PW) method is suggested as an alternative to the Thiessen method for calculating the average areal precipitation (AAP) over a given catchment area. The basis of the method is to divide the study area into subareas by considering the rainfall percentages considered at three adjacent station locations. This method is more reliable and flexible than the Thiessen polygon procedure where the subareas remain the same independent of the recorded rainfall amounts. The application of PW method is given for various precipitation data available in the literature. In PW method higher precipitation values are attached with smaller subareas than in the case of the Thiessen method. It is observed that the PW method yields relatively smaller sum of square deviations from the actual data among the other currently available methods.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
1.
Bras, R. L., and Rodriguez-Iturbe, I. (1985). Random functions and hydrology. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Reading, Mass.
2.
Bruce, J. P., and Clark, R. H. (1966). Hydrometeorology. Pergamon Press, New York, N.Y.
3.
Dodson, R. D. (1993). “Advances in hydrologic computation.”Handbook of hydrology, D. R. Maidment, ed., McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, N.Y., 23.1–23.14.
4.
Hevesi, J. A., Istok, J. D., and Flint, A. L.(1992). “Precipitation estimation in mountainous terrain using multivariate geostatistics, part I. Structural analysis.”J. App. Met., 31, 661–676.
5.
Huff, F. A., and Neill, J. C.(1957). “Areal representativeness of point rainfall.”Trans. Amer. A Geophys. Union, 38(3), 341–351.
6.
Jackson, I. J. (1972). “Mean daily rainfall intensity and number of rain days over Tanzania.”Geogr. Ann., A.54, 369–375.
7.
Kedem, B., Chiu, L. S., and Karni, Z.(1990). “An analysis of the threshold method for measuring area-average rainfall.”J. Appl. Meteor., 29, 3–20.
8.
Koch, G. S., and Link, R. E. (1971). Statistical analysis of geological data, vols I and II. Dower Publications, Inc., New York, N.Y.
9.
Stout, G. E. (1960). “Studies of severe rainstorms in Illinois.”J. Hydr. Div., ASCE, 129–146.
10.
Sumner, G. (1988). Precipitation. Process and analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, N.Y.
11.
Tabios, G. O. III, and Salas, J. D. (1985). “A comparative analysis of techniques for spatial interpolation of precipitation.”Water Resour. Bull. 21, 365–380.
12.
Thiessen, A. H. (1911) “Precipitation averages for large areas.”Mon. Wea. Rev., 39, 1082–1084.
13.
Wiesner, C. J. (1970). Hydrometeorology. Chapman & Hall, Ltd., London, England.
14.
Wilson, J.W., and Atwater, M. A.(1972). “Storm rainfall variability over Connecticut.”J. Geophys. Res., 77(21), 3950–3956.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 3 • Issue 1 • January 1998
Pages: 69 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Jan 1, 1998
Published in print: Jan 1998
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.