MEAN AREAL DEPTH OF PRECIPITATION (Pave)

Point rainfall—it is the rainfall at a single station. For small areas less than 50 km2, point
rainfall may be taken as the average depth over the area. In large areas, there will be a network
of rain-gauge stations. As the rainfall over a large area is not uniform, the average depth
of rainfall over the area is determined by one of the following three methods:

1- Arithmetic average method—It is obtained by simply averaging arithmetically the

amounts of rainfall at the individual rain-gauge stations in the area, i.e.,

This method is fast and simple and yields good estimates in flat country if the gauges
are uniformly distributed and the rainfall at different stations do not vary very widely from
the mean. These limitations can be partially overcome if topographic influences and aerial
representatively are considered in the selection of gauge sites.

2- Thiessen polygon method—This method attempts to allow for non-uniform distribution

of gauges by providing a weighting factor for each gauge. The stations are plotted on a
base map and are connected by straight lines. Perpendicular bisectors are drawn to the straight
lines, joining adjacent stations to form polygons, known as Thiessen polygons. Each polygon
area is assumed to be influenced by the rain gauge station inside it, i.e., if P1, P2, P3 ...
are the rainfalls at the individual stations, and A1, A2, A3 ... are the areas of the polygons
surrounding these stations, (influence areas) respectively, the average depth of rainfall for the
entire basin is given by

The results obtained are usually more accurate than those obtained by simple arithmetic
averaging. The gauges should be properly located over the catchment to get regular shaped
polygons. However, one of the serious limitations of the Thiessen method is its non-flexibility
since a new Thiessen diagram has to be constructed every time if there is a change in the rain
gage networks
 3- The isohyetal method—In this method, the point rainfalls are plotted on a suitable
base map and the lines of equal rainfall (isohyets) are drawn giving consideration to orographic
effects and storm morphology,. The average rainfall between the successive isohyets
taken as the average of the two isohyetal values are weighted with the area between the
isohyets, added up and divided by the total area which gives the average depth of rainfall over
the entire basin, i.e.,
 Example: Point rainfalls due to a storm at several rain-gauge stations in a basin are
shown in figure below. Determine the mean areal depth of rainfall over the basin by the three
methods.

Station A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O
Rainfall records P1 (cm) 8.8 7.6 10.8 9.2 13.8 10.4 8.5 10.5 11.2 9.5 7.8 5.2 5.6 6.8 7.4

Solution:
1- Arithmetic average method

𝛴𝑃 113.7
Pavg= 1 = = 9.5 cm
𝑛 12
ΣP1= Sum of station records within the basin

2- Thiessen polygon method—The Thiessen polygons are constructed as shown in

Figure above and the polygonal areas are planimetered and the mean areal depth of rainfall is
worked out below:
 Total ΣP1=133.1 cm ΣA1=7180 km2 ΣA1P1=66714 km2-cm
n=15

3- Isohyetal method: The isohyets are drawn as shown in figure below and the mean
areal depth of rainfall is worked out below: