Water resources and rainfall distribution function: A case study in Lebanon

Abstract

Rainfall and air temperature are major parameters of climate affecting changes in the environment. Rainfall is considered as the vital source of water around the world. In this paper, a detailed review has been conducted to highlight the main water resources in Lebanon. Furthermore, a statistical analysis of climate parameters including air temperature and rainfall amount in the Lebanese capital (Beirut) with different terrain conditions has been conducted. The climate data were collected from the meteo-rological service for a period of 25 years (1991–2015). The data were recorded over various periods to explore different climatic environments. The results showed that the mean air temperature and rainfall are within the ranges of 14.65°C to 17.98°C and 22.63 to 73.1 mm, respectively, during the investigation period. In addition, four distribution functions have been used to analyze the precipitation characteristics at the studied stations. Based on the results, it was observed that the Gumbel Maximum and Logistic distributions were able to provide the best fit to the actual data for the locations studied.