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Statistical analysis of rainfall events at Kalpakkam

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Statistical analysis of rainfall events at Kalpakkam
T.Jesan11, C.Manonmani1, S.Rajaram1,
Health Physics Division,
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre,
Mumbai - 400085, INDIA,
Email: tjesan@imsc.res.in; Phone: +91-9445004311
Abstract
Statistical analysis of rainfall trend and extreme events, on different
spatial and temporal scales, has been of great concern due to the
attention given to global climate change. Also, the analysis of rainfall
variability at any place is vital for many applications like forecasting,
in identifying the reliability or risks, irrigation engineering, designs
of hydraulic structures, public health engineering, drainage system
design etc. In this paper, the rainfall observed at Kalpakkam site from
1968 to 2015, was subjected to statistical analysis. Incidentally, the
annual lowest rainfall was 567.1 mm in the starting year of 1968 and
the highest was 2440.3 mm during 2015,the last year of the analysis
at Kalpakkam site. The rainfall has been less than 1000 mm on 8
occasions during 48-year period in 1968, 1974, 1982, 1986, 2002,
2003, 2013 and 2014. Similarly a rainfall of > 2000 mm was
recorded in 1985 and 2015. Maximum daily rainfall 317mm occurred
on 2nd December-2015. The monsoon activity is peak at Kalpakkam
in the month of November during North-East monsoon. The non
parametric Mann-Kendall Zs statistics, trend of rainfall and rainy
days for 48 years showed a negative trend of rainfall and rainy days
for months of June and October and positive trend for remaining
months with statistically non-significant condition. Also, during the
South-West monsoon in the month of July decreasing trend of rainy
days is observed, which is significant at the 95% confidence level.
Hurst exponent for Northeast monsoon rainfall at Kalpakkam follows
anti-persistence pattern which means an increase will most likely be
followed by a decrease or vice-versa. South-West monsoon rainfall at
Kalpakkam follows persistence time series. The extreme value
distribution function parameters have been established for daily
maximum, monthly maximum and annual rainfall. All rainfall
variables studied, obey Fisher-Tippet Type I extreme value
distribution. The estimated extreme values of the parameters derived
for the mean return period of 5, 10, 25, 50,100 and 1000 years are
useful in arriving reliability or risk estimates at the design basis
values to ensure safety of civil structures, future plans in the water
harvesting, irrigation, siting and design of a nuclear facility in and
around Kalpakkam. The bootstrap estimates ensure robustness of
return period values with uncertainty limits.
I. INTRODUCTION
The rainfall received in a given period at a location is highly
variable from one year to another. The study of long-term
analysis of rainfall at any place finds use in many applications
like irrigation engineering, water harvesting, public health
engineering, drainage system design etc. Also the analysis of
the rainfall trend is vital for the purpose of forecasting in
identifying the changes and impacts linked to national
economy[1]. Extreme rainfall events and the resulting floods
usually cause a lot of damage to life and properties of human
society also have large negative impacts on many vulnerable
aspects of human health, social organization, and nature
system and the estimation of extreme values of rainfall
parameters is an important aspect of the siting and design of a
1
P.M. Ravi1,2, R.M.Tripathi1,2, S.Predeepkumar1,2
Health Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre,
2
Mumbai - 400085, INDIA,
Homi Bhabha National Institute, Anushakthi Nagar,
Mumbai-400094
nuclear facility[2]. In this paper statistical analysis of rainfall
events observed from 1968 to 2015 at Kalpakkam site is done
through Mann-Kendall trend test method, Hurst exponent and
extreme value distribution analysis with bootstrap estimation.
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
Kalpakkam site is situated on the east coast of India, about 65
km south of Chennai city with a number of nuclear facilities.
The daily collection of rainfall data at Kalpakkam for 48 years
(1968-2015) forms the basic data set for the analysis. Rainy
day is defined as a day having rainfall greater than or equal to
0.1 mm. The statistical methods used in this analysis are
explained below:
A. Mann-Kendall statistic
The Mann-Kendall test is a non-parametric test for identifying
trends in time series data. This is a statistical method which is
being used for studying the spatial variation and temporal
trends of hydro-climatic series [3]. The Mann-Kendall statistic
S is
Where each data point xi is used as a reference point that is
ranked from i = 1,2,…n-1 and is compared with all other data
points xj which is ranked from j = i+1,2,…n in the sequence
of measurements x1, x2, . . .,xnover time.The standardized
Zsstatistics follow a normal standardized distribution [3]:
The hypothesis that there is no trend is rejected when the Z
value computed by above equation is greater in absolute value
than the critical value Zα/2 at a chosen level of significance α(
α=0.05 for 95% confidence and Z0.025=1.96).
B. Hurst exponent
Hurst exponent provides a measure for predictability and
the values are used to build a model for prediction.Based
on the Hurst exponent value H, the following
classifications of time series can be realized [4]:
1. H = 0.5 indicates a random series; meaning that the
future values of the time series are not influenced by
the present or past values and those series are
classified as unpredictable.
2. 0 <H < 0.5 indicates an anti-persistent series, which
means an up value is more likely followed by a down
value, and vice versa;
3. 0.5 <H <1 indicates a persistent series, which means
the direction of the next value is more likely the same
as current value.
Rescaled range analysis can be used to calculate the
Hurst exponent [4]. According to this method for the
time series X(t) of the length N is divided into d(N-
1) sub-series of length m(2,3,..N/2) .For each sub-series
n the range of the cumulative deviate series Rn and
standard deviation of the initial series Sn are estimated
using following relations:
En and Sn are mean and standard deviation of a sub-
series n respectively then the Rescaled range is
. Using the values of the distribution parameters, Tx for any
Hurst found that Rescaled range (R/S) scales by power -
law as time t increases, then
C. EXTREME VALUE ANALYSIS
Extreme value distributions arise as limiting distributions for
maximums or minimums (extreme values) of a sample of
independent, identically distributed random variables, as the
sample size increases. In most of the statistical distributions,
the extreme values of the parameters generally follow one of
the following types of distributions [2, 9 and 10]. Fisher-
Tippett Type I distribution for maximums which is also
known as Gumbel distribution
Fisher-Tippett Type II distribution
The values are arranged in ascending order for maximum
and descending order for minimum of the parameter and
each data point is assigned a rank ‘r’. P(x) is the probability
that the value of the variable does not equal or exceed x. The
probability of non-excedence P(x) of a particular magnitude
x of the data point of rank r is (Weibul, 1939)[2]
where N is the total number of data points. The linear fit
between the data values and probability of non-exceedence
can be used to transform into the expressions for the Fisher-
Tippett Type I and II extreme value distribution functions in
the following way [2, 9 and 10]:
where YP is the reduced variate
corresponding to P(x) defined as
and
Thus from the slopes and intercepts of the linear fit the
distribution parameters α, β1, β2 and γ can be determined [2,
9 and 10]. These parameters then define P(x) completely and
enable one to obtain the probability that a given value is
exceeded irrespective of whether the value lies within the
observed range or not [2]. Mean Recurrence Interval (MRI)
or return period is defined as Tx the period expressed in
number of years in which the annual observation is expected
to return which is related to P(x) by a relation
value of the parameter or conversely the value of the
parameter for any return period can be obtained. The risk to an
event (floods) may be defined, as the probability of occurrence
in n events. Therefore, the risk is the sum of the probabilities
of 1 flood, 2 floods, 3 floods,….., of n floods, which occur
during n periods of years. According to this procedure, to
calculate the risk, the function below is used [7].
Where n is the number of events or floods and Tx is the
return period.
D. BOOTSTRAP METHOD
The bootstrap approach is based on the construction of
artificial data sets from a given collection of real data, by re-
sampling the observations in a manner consistent with the null
hypothesis and then to compute the test statistic of interest for
each artificial batch[8]. The bootstrap procedure involves
choosing random samples (bootstrap sampleX*), with
replacement from the given data set X of size n. From this
bootstrap sample X* of size n, the statistic of interest can
again be determined by the same way. Sampling with
replacement means that each observation is selected separately
at random from the original dataset X. The number of
elements in each bootstrap sample X* equals the n number of
elements in the original data set [8]. The range of sample
estimates enables to establish the uncertainty of the quantity
estimated and the accuracy of statistics.
 III. RESULTS
Maximum and minimum monthly rainfall averaged over the
period from 1968 to 2015 is 373.82 mm in the month of
November and 6.7 mm in March. Monthly maximum rainfall
occurred 976.5 mm November -1970 followed by 920.6
November-2015. Fig.-1 shows the monthly rainfall at
Kalpakkam from 1968 to 2015.The lowest rainfall was 567.1
Fig.-1: Monthly rainfall at Kalpakkam site from 1968 to 2015
Fig.-2: Monthly mean rainfall at Kalpakkam site
Kalpakkam site receives rainfall both from South-West and
North-East monsoons. The monsoon activity is at its peak at
Kalpakkam in the month of November during North-East
monsoon. During North East monsoon Kalpakkam site
receives an average of 63.2% of total rainfall and remaining
about 36.8% during South West monsoon. Maximum daily
mm in the year 1968 and the highest was 2440.3 mm during
2015. The mean rainfall over the period of this report works
out to be 1354.32 mm with a standard deviation of 393.44mm.
The rainfall has been less than 1000 mm on 8 occasions out of
48-year period during 1968, 1974, 1982, 1986, 2002, 2003,
2013 and 2014 years. Similarly a rainfall > 2000 mm has
occurred on 1985 and 2015.
rainfall 317mm occurred on 2nd December-2015 during the
period 1968 to 2015.
Fig.-3: Monsoon rainfall at Kalpakkam site from 1968 to
2015
Fig.-4 shows the non parametric Mann-Kendall Zs statistics,
trend of rainfall and rainy days for 48(1968-2015) years from
January to December. Through Zs statistics, there is an
evidence of rising trend of rainfall and rainy days for months:
January to May, August, September, November and December
and while Zs value is showing negative trend of rainfall and
rainy days for months in June, July and October. However the
representation of monthly positive and negative trend of
rainfall and rainy days with Zs statistics indicating almost non-
significant condition except for July month decreasing trend of
rainy days which is significant at the 95% confidence level.
South-West monsoon period includes June and July months
demonstrates decreasing trend with statistically non-
significant condition. The results of North East monsoon
period October, November and December show increasing
trend of rainfall with statistically non-significant condition.
The increasing trend of North East monsoon in all India was
reported by earlier studies [5].
probable that the process will continue to decrease, vice-versa.
The decreasing trend of rainy days found through Mann-
Kendall test for the month of July seems to show persistence
behavior with Hurst exponent. It means July month at
Kalpakkam may continue to decreasing trend of rainy days.
Southwest monsoon rainfall at Kalpakkam follows persistence
time series. This means that for a decreasing trend of time
series then, it is more probable that the process will continue
to decrease, vice-versa. The decreasing trend of rainy days
found through Mann-Kendall test for the month of July seems
to show persistence behavior with Hurst exponent. It means
July month at Kalpakkam may continue to decreasing trend of
rainy days.

Table-1: Distribution parameters for extreme value

probability functions and 5,10,25,50,100 and 1000 years
return period values for maximum daily rainfall,
maximum monthly rainfall and annual rainfall at
Kalpakkam site

Maximum Maximum
Annual
Daily Monthly
Parameters rainfall
rainfall rainfall
(mm)
(mm) (mm)

α 117.01 359.00 1171.88

β1 54.24 182.28 333.10

β2 108.47 328.80 1134.99

Fig.-4: Mann-Kendall trend forindividual month’s rainfall
and rainy days γ 2.68 2.48 4.09
x and
0.99 1.00 0.99
Yp
Correlation
log(x)
Coefficient
and 0.94 0.96 0.95
Yp
5 209.32 669.24 1738.81

Return 10 244.51 787.48 1954.87

period
(years) 25 292.67 949.33 2250.64

50 329.73 1073.90 2478.28

100 367.06 1199.34 2707.52

Fig.-5: Hurst exponent for the rainfall time series at
Kalpakkam site
Hurst exponent has been estimated for every month, South
West monsoon, North East monsoon and annual of rainfall
time series at Kalpakkam as shown in the Fig.-5. This
provides to understand the statistical trends of rainfall time
series in terms of categorizing their persistence, anti-
Persistence behavior. Northeast monsoon rainfall at
Kalpakkam follows anti-persistence pattern time series which
means an increase will most likely be followed by a decrease
or vice-versa. The anti-persistence behavior of North-East
monsoon all over Tamil Nadu rainfall time series was
established through earlier studies[6]. Southwest monsoon
rainfall at Kalpakkam follows persistence time series. This
means that for a decreasing trend of time series then, it is more
1000 491.71 1618.24 3473.02
The estimation of extreme values of rainfall parameters is an
important aspect of the siting and design of a nuclear facility
[2]. The parameter values describing the distribution functions
of extreme value analysis for daily maximum, monthly
maximum and annual rainfall are summarised in Table-1 and
compared with earlier report at Kalpakkam based on the
period of 32 years (1968-1999) [10]. With respect to linear
degree of correlation between Yp and x (or log(x)), it is seen
that all the rainfall variables studied obey Fisher-Tippet Type I
distribution. For design basis flood for nuclear facility, Atomic
Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) recommended 1000 years
mean return period for rainfall corresponds to 99.9%
reliability (0.1% risk) in a year [7]. The AERB requirement,
the estimation of 1000 years return period of rainfall which the significant of 95% confidence level, decreasing trend of
corresponds to 491.71mm 1618.24mm and 3473.02mm for rainy days in the month of July.
maximum daily rainfall, maximum monthly rainfall and Based on Hurst exponent estimation, Southwest monsoon
Annual rainfall respectively for Kalpakkam site. rainfall at Kalpakkam follows persistence time series which
means decreasing trend of rainy days in the month of July to
Table-2: Bootstrap estimation of return periods persist. Northeast monsoon rainfall at Kalpakkam follows
Return period anti-persistence pattern time series which means an increase in
5 10 25 50 100 1000 rainfall and rainy days followed by a decrease in rainfall or
(years)
vice-versa. The extreme value distribution function parameters
Mean 208 242 289 325 362 482 have been established for daily maximum, monthly maximum
Max and annual rainfall for Kalpakkam site. All rainfall variables
Daily Std 14 18 23 26 30 44
studied obey Fisher-Tippet Type I extreme value distribution.
Rainfall 95% 207 241 288 324 360 480 The estimated extreme values of the parameters derived for
(mm) confidence
209 243 290 326 363 484
the mean return period of 5, 10, 25, 50,100 and 1000 years are
interval
useful in arriving reliability or risk estimation. The bootstrap
Mean 661 776 933 1053 1175 1587 estimates ensure robustness of return period values with
Max Std 44 54 68 79 90 130 uncertainty limits.
Monthly
95%
Rainfall
confidence
659 774 930 1050 1171 1581 Acknowledgment
(mm)
mean 663 778 936 1057 1179 1592 We thank Shri R. Satyanarayana, Station Director, and
interval Madras Atomic Power Station for extending the requisite
Mean 1732 1942 2231 2453 2676 3412 facilities and continuous support. We extend our gratitude to
Annual Std 81 98 125 147 169 243 Shri.A.S.Ponnuswamy(retd) for assistance in data collection
Rainfall and maintenance of records.
95% 1728 1938 2225 2446 2669 3402
(mm) confidence
mean References
1735 1947 2236 2459 2684 3423
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