A study of the influence of the spatial distribution of rain gauge networks on areal average rainfall calculation

Estimating the AAR (Areal Average Rainfall) is an essential process when determining the accurate amount of available water resources and building the input data which is integral to the Rainfall-Runoff Analysis. To estimate the AAR, using rain gauge networks that are spatially well distributed is ideal. In this study, the spatial characteristics of the rain gauge networks for the five major river basins in South Korea are considered and the amount of influence the spatial distribution has on the estimation of the AAR is evaluated. For this purpose, the estimation error for AAR is calculated for two cases. The first case (Analysis 1) compares the value of the estimation error of the AAR from two different basins where one has well distributed rain gauges while the other does not. The second case (Analysis 2) estimates the estimation error of two different rain gauge distributions for the same basin. The spatial characteristic of the rain gauge network is evaluated by using the NNI (Nearest Neighbour Index), while the Arithmetic Mean Method, Thiessen Method and the Estimation Theory are applied to calculate the AAR. From Analysis 1, we are able to prove that the estimation error of the AAR is relatively small in the basins with that have spatially well distributed rain gauge networks whereas the estimation error is relatively large when the spatial distribution of the rain gauge network is clustered. Also, results from Analysis 2 showed that not only is the spatial distribution of the rain gauge networks important, but that the density has a significant influence on accurately calculating the AAR. The results from this study can be applied towards the ideal establishment of the rain gauge networks.