Imputation Efficiency of Missing Rainfall Data Using Computational Tools in a River Basin, Jubones-Ecuador

Abstract

For a correct analysis of water resources, it is necessary to know precisely the rainfall in an area; this will allow applications with high levels of reliability in terms of the amount of water in a hydrographic basin. The series is usually of several years, so it is very likely that missing data will be found due to equipment failures, human failures, or loss of storage records. Before any hydrological analysis, a fundamental task is to have complete data series, and due to the variability of certain hydrographic basins, many of the conventional methods are ineffective. For this reason, the R Climatol package is used, and the statistical methodology is recommended from the normalization of the data to evaluate its operation. For this, the Jubones river basin data are imputed, characterized by being a Pacific-slope and having a great rainfall variability. Several statistical comparison metrics have been used to verify the methodology performance, finding perfect fits in various comparisons between data series from different meteorological stations.