Analysis of annual maximum and partial duration rainfall series

Abstract

Kelantan River Basin is affected by two significant monsoon seasons, namely the Northeast and Southwest monsoons that lead to flood and heavy downpour events. Consequently, analysis of rainfall series is gaining more attention from researchers. The aim of this study is to analyse the annual maximum series (AMS) and partial duration series (PDS) by fitting different probability distributions. Generalized Extreme Value (GEV), Generalized Pareto (GP), Log Pearson Type 3 (LP3), Log Normal (LN) and Log Normal 3 (LN3) were used in this study. The performances of these probability distributions were evaluated using different goodness-of-fit tests, namely the chi-square (χ2), Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) and Anderson-Darling (AD) tests. Subsequently, the performances of probability distributions were compared and the best fit probability distribution was selected. The GEV and GP distributions were selected as the best fit probability distributions for AMS and PDS, respectively. The findings can provide useful information for flood mitigation and water resources management.