Innovative rainfall measurement devices in tropical regions

Author

Honingh, D. 

Contributors

Rutten, M. (mentor)
Ten Veldhuis, M. (mentor)

Abstracts

In this thesis, the rain conditions of Yangon and Bago are studied. During the rainy season large rain quantities fall in a short period, which quite regularly causes major floods in Myanmar. The floods have a devastating impact on urban society, so it is important to address this problem. For forecasting these floods and designing a proper sewer system, it is important to know how much precipitation there will be, whereby the time and spatial variation have to be taken into account. Firstly, the available historical data of both cities were studied. Of these datasets Intensity Duration Frequency (IDF) curves, which give an overview of the return periods of rain events, have been made. In addition, variations in monthly and annual rain amounts were investigated. This is very useful information, but the current number of stations is not enough to capture the spatial variation of precipitation. The amount of monitoring stations in Myanmar would thus have to be increased, whereby the desired ratio of measurements points will be 24 rain gauges per 1000 km2. For creating this measurement network, automatic rain gauges should be used in order to also capture the variation in time.