loading page

Deep Learning for Spatial Interpolation of Rainfall Events
  • +2
  • Yi (Victor) Wang,
  • Antonia Sebastian,
  • Seung Hee Kim,
  • Thomas Piechota,
  • Menas Kafatos
Yi (Victor) Wang
Chapman University

Corresponding Author:ywang2@chapman.edu

Author Profile
Antonia Sebastian
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Author Profile
Seung Hee Kim
Chapman University
Author Profile
Thomas Piechota
Chapman University
Author Profile
Menas Kafatos
Chapman University
Author Profile

Abstract

Traditional deterministic and geostatistical methods for rainfall interpolation usually fall short of integration of data on a variety of variables. These omitted variables include seasonal variables such as time of year, topographic variables such as elevation, and/or remote sensing variables such as radar reflectivity. Meanwhile, poor quality in data on certain variables for some data points poses challenges to modelers who are using machine learning approaches to estimate rainfall amounts for locations without gauge measurements. To overcome these limitations, this presentation introduces a novel deep learning-based approach to recreate rainfall histories for large geographic areas with a high spatio-temporal resolution. The proposed approach enables integration of data on a variety of variables by adopting a multi-layer perceptron modeling framework. The introduction of binary variables on data quality as additional input variables resolves the issue of unequal data quality for different data points. As a demonstration, historical records of rainfall at hourly and daily intervals recorded at 139 rain gauge stations in or close to Harris County, Texas, from 1986 to 2013 are used, along with other auxiliary variables, to train deep learning regression models to interpolate rainfall at surface level. Results of validation and recreated spatiotemporal distributions of rainfall indicate good performance of the proposed approach compared to both gauged and radar data. The final product of the proposed approach can be applied to other regions, with information on hindcast historical rainfall events, for pluvial flood risk analysis. The approach will assist researchers and policy specialists to validate hydrologic modeling as well as for training machine learning models to identify extreme rainfall events to facilitate early warning and emergency response.