Spatial Estimation of Rainfall Distribution and Its Classification in Duhok Governorate Using GIS

Mohamad J. Noori, Hussein H. Hassan, Yaseen T. Mustafa

Faculty of Science of the University of Zakho, Zakho, Kurdistan Region-Iraq.
School of Planning, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science of the University of Duhok, Duhok, Kurdistan Region-Iraq.

DOI: 10.4236/jwarp.2014.62012                

Abstract

Rainfall is a significant portion of hydrologic data. Rainfall records, however, are often incomplete due to several factors. In this study, the inverse distance weighting (IDW) method integrated with GIS is used to estimate the rainfall distribution in Duhok Governorate. A total of 25 rain fall stations and rainfall data between 2000 and 2010 were used, where 6 rainfall stations were used for cross-validation. In addition, the relationship between interpolation accuracy and two critical parameters of IDW (Power α value, and a radius of influence) was evaluated. Also, the rainfall distribution of Duhok Governorate was classified. As an output of this study and in most cases, the optimal parameters for IDW in interpolating rainfall data must have a radius of influence up to (15 - 60 km). However, the optimal α values varied between 1 and 5. Based on the results of this study, we concluded that the IDW is an appropriate method of spatial interpolation to predict the probable rainfall data in Duhok Governorate using α = 1 and search radius = 105 km for all the 25 rainfall stations.

Keywords

Geographic Information Systems (GIS); Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW); Spatial Interpolation; Rainfall Data

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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