Effect of Data Length on Assessment of Uncertainty of Error in Rainfall Estimation Using Log Normal Distribution

N. Vivekanandan¹

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.10 , Issue.6 , pp.9-17, Dec-2023

Online published on Dec 31, 2023

Copyright © N. Vivekanandan . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
Estimation of rainfall for a given return period is considered as one of the important parameters in hydrological studies to estimate flood discharge, which is needed for the planning, design and management of civil engineering infrastructure projects. In this paper, a study on effect of data length on assessment of uncertainty of error in rainfall estimation by adopting 2-parameter Log Normal (LN2) distribution for Pune and Vadgaon Maval rain-gauge sites of Maharashtra was carried out. The parameters of LN2 were determined by Method of Moments (MoM), Maximum Likelihood Method (MLM) and Method of L-Moments (LMO), and used for estimation of rainfall. The selection of best fit method of LN2 for rainfall estimation was made through Goodness-of-Fit (viz., Chi-Square and Kolmogorov-Smirnov) and diagnostic (viz., correlation coefficient, Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency and root mean squared error) tests. The outcomes of rainfall analysis of Pune and Vadgaon Maval indicated that the estimated rainfall increases when data length increases. The study showed that the standard error in the estimated rainfall using three (viz., MoM, MLM and LMO) methods of LN2 are in decreasing order when data length increases. The study also showed that the standard errors in rainfall estimates computed by MoM for Pune and MLM for Vadgaon Maval are less than those values of other methods. The results indicated that the estimated rainfall by LMO for Pune and MoM for Vadgaon Maval is higher than those values other methods. Based on GoF and diagnostic tests results, it was found that the LMO is superior to MoM and MLM, and hence adjudged as best method for rainfall estimation at Pune and Vadgaon Maval.

Key-Words / Index Term :
Chi-Square, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Log Normal, L-Moments, Mean Squared Error, Model Efficiency, Rainfall

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