Abstract
Rainfall in mountainous watershed presents high spatial variability due to elevation effects, and this introduces uncertainty in forecasting hydrological hazards such as water floods and debris flows. This study investigated the spatial variation of rainfall in a small watershed with a network of 10 rain gauges. A rainfall-elevation relationship was established based on data from 52 rainstorm events, which provides a method for rainfall estimation within the watershed. Result indicated that lower errors of interpolation occur when the rainfall amount is high, and that it is more difficult to estimate rainfall in high-elevation regions. Rain gauges become less representative when the distance between gauges is >3.0 km. The spatial variation of rainfall suggests that the gauge at the lowest elevation, or a single gauge within the source region, shows non-negligible errors with regard to calculating water flood discharge and identifying rainfall thresholds for debris flows. This study contributes to the understanding of event rainfall distribution and its impact on hydrological hazard forecasting in a small mountainous watershed.
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