Optimal design of rain gauge network in the Middle Yarra River catchment, Australia

Rainfall data are a fundamental input for effective planning, designing and operating of water resources projects. A well-designed rain gauge network is capable of providing accurate estimates of necessary areal average and/or point rainfall estimates at any desired ungauged location in a catchment. Increasing network density with additional rain gauge stations has been the main underlying criterion in the past to reduce error and uncertainty in rainfall estimates. However, installing and operation of additional stations in a network involves large cost and manpower. Hence, the objective of this study is to design an optimal rain gauge network in the Middle Yarra River catchment in Victoria, Australia. The optimal positioning of additional stations as well as optimally relocating of existing redundant stations using the kriging-based geostatistical approach was undertaken in this study. Reduction of kriging error was considered as an indicator for optimal spatial positioning of the stations. Daily rainfall records of 1997 (an El Nino year) and 2010 (a La Nina year) were used for the analysis. Ordinary kriging was applied for rainfall data interpolation to estimate the kriging error for the network. The results indicate that significant reduction in the kriging error can be achieved by the optimal spatial positioning of the additional as well as redundant stations. Thus, the obtained optimal rain gauge network is expected to be appropriate for providing high quality rainfall estimates over the catchment. The concept proposed in this study for optimal rain gauge network design through combined use of additional and redundant stations together is equally applicable to any other catchment. (c) 2014 The Authors. Hydrological Processes published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.