Spatial distribution and uncertainty of daily rainfall for return level using hierarchical Bayesian modeling combined with climate and geographical information

Abstract

Quantification of extreme rainfall is very important in establishing a flood protection plan, and a general measure of extreme rainfall is expressed as an T-year return level. In this study, a method was proposed for quantifying spatial distribution and uncertainty of daily rainfall depths with various return periods using a hierarchical Bayesian model combined with climate and geographical information, and was applied to the Seoul-Incheon-Gyeonggi region. The annual maximum daily rainfall depth of six automated synoptic observing system weather stations of the Korea Meteorological Administration in the study area was fitted to the generalized extreme value distribution. The applicability and reliability of the proposed method were investigated by comparing daily rainfall quantiles for various return levels derived from the at-site frequency analysis and the regional frequency analysis based on the index flood method. The uncertainty of the regional frequency analysis based on the index flood method was found to be the greatest at all stations and all return levels, and it was confirmed that the reliability of the regional frequency analysis based on the hierarchical Bayesian model was the highest. The proposed method can be used to generate the rainfall quantile maps for various return levels in the Seoul-Incheon-Gyeonggi region and other regions with similar spatial sizes.