Regional variations of monthly rainfall amounts in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract EN

Sporadic and haphazard spatial as well as temporal occurrences of rainfall intensities in arid regions such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia require detailed interpretations of rainfall amounts which are necessary prerequisites for various activities such as agricultural planning, water resources management, groundwater recharge, etc.

The monthly rainfall totals at 29 stations for more then 15 year records are used in order to detect rainfall regimes by temporal and spatial evaluation techniques.

First of all some basic statistics, namely, the mean, standard deviation, kurtosis and skewness arc presented in order to identify the nature of temporal rainfall patterns.

Frequency distribution of rainfall at each station provides supplementary information in such a pattern recognition process.

In addition, plots of skewness versus kurtosis provide basis for firm decision making processes about pattern recognition.

On the other hand, spatial monthly rainfall patterns are sought on the basis of kriged mean and standard deviation values all over the Kingdom.

The pattern recognition procedures as proposed in this paper can be applied in any other part of the world.

Besides, these techniques are preliminary requirements of regional and/or temporal rainfall modelling.