Rainfall Data Analysis and Interpolating in ArcGIS: Sudan Case Study

Abstract

Rainfall has many effects, including, for example, but not limited to, its impact on agriculture, where many countries depend on agriculture, and therefore the amount of rainwater and its management play a direct role in the economy. Also, the lack of study and effective management of rainfall by competent authorities leads to many human and material disasters. This paper was conducted to study rainfall using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology and thus enable effective management and prediction of the rainfall amount. Rainfall data were obtained for 41 years, from 1981 to 2021, for 18 stations in the Republic of Sudan, in the form of Excel files from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website. Then, within the ArcGIS 10.8 program, the stations were created, which were randomly selected to cover all the states of Sudan, and the study was conducted on them. By using the geostatistical analyst toolbar, A histogram was obtained that shows the frequency of values and detailed information about them. Also, a trend analysis was conducted, and it became clear that the rainfall increases the more we head south and east. Rainfall prediction maps were generated using inverse distance weighting, local polynomial interpolation, and kriging methods. Finally, a detailed study was conducted on the Khartoum station by creating a graph that shows the variation in rainfall over the 12 months for 41 years.