Alharbi (2026) Multivariate Regionalization of Rainfall Stations in Saudi Arabia Using Rainfall Concentration, Short-Duration Intensity, and Physiographic Descriptors

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Identification

• Journal: Water
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-08-09
• Authors: Raied Saad Alharbi
• DOI: 10.3390/w18161949

Research Groups

Not specified

Short Summary

The study develops a stability-validated multivariate framework to partition rain gauges in Saudi Arabia into homogeneous rainfall regions to facilitate hydrological design and data transfer to ungauged sites.

Objective

• To establish a robust, reproducible method for classifying rain gauges into homogeneous rainfall regions across Saudi Arabia, addressing the challenges of high spatial-temporal variability and uneven records in arid regions.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: National (Saudi Arabia)
• Temporal Scale: 2015–2023

Methodology and Data

• Models used: K-means clustering, Ward clustering, Gaussian Mixture Modeling (GMM), and block-wise Principal Component Analysis (PCA).
• Data sources: National database of rain gauges (202 stations retained after screening) utilizing 5-minute resolution records.

Main Results

• Identified a four-region structure as the most stable configuration (median adjusted Rand index: 0.977).
• The four identified regions are: a widespread arid interior, a small near-coastal group, a wetter western–southwestern group, and a coastal-foothill group.
• The strongest contrasts between regions were driven by distance from the coast, elevation, and short-duration rainfall intensity.
• Cross-algorithm agreement for the four-region partition was moderate (adjusted Rand index: 0.526–0.663), with high reproduction under different feature representations (0.804).

Contributions

• Provides a reproducible, multivariate framework for rainfall regionalization in arid environments.
• Offers a validated basis for regional rainfall-frequency analysis, station pooling, and the transfer of hydrological information to ungauged or short-record sites.

Funding

Not specified

Citation

@article{Alharbi2026Multivariate,
  author = {Alharbi, Raied Saad},
  title = {Multivariate Regionalization of Rainfall Stations in Saudi Arabia Using Rainfall Concentration, Short-Duration Intensity, and Physiographic Descriptors},
  journal = {Water},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.3390/w18161949},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/w18161949}
}