Projection the long-term ungauged rainfall using integrated Statistical Downscaling Model and Geographic Information System (SDSM-GIS) model

N N A Tukimat; N A Ahmad Syukri; M A Malek

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02456

Projection the long-term ungauged rainfall using integrated Statistical Downscaling Model and Geographic Information System (SDSM-GIS) model

Heliyon. 2019 Sep 17;5(9):e02456. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02456. eCollection 2019 Sep.

Authors

N N A Tukimat^{1

2}, N A Ahmad Syukri¹, M A Malek³

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Civil Engineering and Earth Resources, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia.
² Earth Resources and Sustainability Center (ERAS), Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia.
³ Institute of Sustainable Energy (ISE), Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Malaysia.

Abstract

An accuracy in the hydrological modelling will be affected when having limited data sources especially at ungauged areas. Due to this matter, it will not receiving any significant attention especially on the potential hydrologic extremes. Thus, the objective was to analyse the accuracy of the long-term projected rainfall at ungauged rainfall station using integrated Statistical Downscaling Model and Geographic Information System (SDSM-GIS) model. The SDSM was used as a climate agent to predict the changes of the climate trend in Δ2030s by gauged and ungauged stations. There were five predictors set have been selected to form the local climate at the region which provided by NCEP (validated) and CanESM2-RCP4.5 (projected). According to the statistical analyses, the SDSM was controlled to produce reliable validated results with lesser %MAE (<23%) and higher R. The projected rainfall was suspected to decrease 14% in Δ2030s. All the RCPs agreed the long term rainfall pattern was consistent to the historical with lower annual rainfall intensity. The RCP8.5 shows the least rainfall changes. These findings then used to compare the accuracy of monthly rainfall at control station (Stn 2). The GIS-Kriging method being as an interpolation agent was successfully to produce similar rainfall trend with the control station. The accuracy was estimated to reach 84%. Comparing between ungauged and gauged stations, the small %MAE in the projected monthly results between gauged and ungauged stations as a proved the integrated SDSM-GIS model can producing a reliable long-term rainfall generation at ungauged station.

Keywords: Earth sciences; Engineering; Environmental science; GIS; Kriging; SDSM; Statistical downscaling; Ungauged rainfall.