Bayesian interval estimations for the mean of delta-three parameter lognormal distribution with application to heavy rainfall data

PLoS One. 2022 Apr 14;17(4):e0266455. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266455. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Flash flooding is caused by heavy rainfall that frequently occurs during a tropical storm, and the Thai population has been subjected to this problem for a long time. The key to solving this problem by planning and taking action to protect the population and infrastructure is the motivation behind this study. The average weekly rainfall in northern Thailand during Tropical Storm Wipha are approximated using interval estimations for the mean of a delta-three parameter lognormal distribution. Our proposed methods are Bayesian confidence intervals-based noninformative (NI) priors (equal-tailed and highest posterior density (HPD) intervals based on NI1 and NI2 priors). Our numerical evaluation shows that the HPD-NI1 prior was closer to the nominal confidence level and possessed the narrowest expected length when the variance was small-to-medium for a large threshold. The efficacy of the methods was illustrated by applying them to weekly natural rainfall data in northern Thailand to examine their abilities to indicate flooding occurrence.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Bayes Theorem
  • Cyclonic Storms*
  • Floods*
  • Statistical Distributions
  • Thailand

Grants and funding

This research was funded by King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Contract no. KMUTBNB-65-KNOW-09. Dr. Patcharee Maneerat and Dr. Pisit Nakjai were appreciated funding by Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI) and Uttaradit Rajabhat University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.