Determination of Spatial Variability of Monthly Rainfall in the Eastern Mediterranean Region Using Geostatistical Techniques

Authors: Mahmut ÇETİN, Kazım TÜLÜCÜ

Abstract: The aim of this study was to determine the spatial variability of monthly rainfall and generate monthly point and areal rainfall series for the Eastern Mediterranean Region using geostatistical methods. Omnidirectional average monthly experimental semivariograms were plotted. It was concluded that these can be described by a spherical model. The theoretical semivariogram parameters varied significantly from month to month. From a jack-knifing cross validation procedure, it was concluded that these models represent the spatial structure of the rainfall field. Generated punctual kriged rainfall series were not different from the observed ones at a significance level of 5 %. Areal rainfall series were generated for selected subcatchments. Kriging error maps showed that the rainfall observation network is effective for all seasons apart from the summer.

Keywords: Geostatistics, Monthly Rainfall, Semivariogram Parameters, Kriging, Areal Rainfall

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