The development and assessment of a daily rainfall disaggregation model for South Africa

Abstract

In this study a daily to hourly rainfall disaggregation model developed in Australia has been modified and applied in South Africa. The structure of the model allows for the generation of 480 different temporal rainfall distributions varying from uniform to very peaked. The model was independently tested at 15 locations in differing climatic regions in South Africa. At each location, observed hourly data were aggregated to yield daily values and were then disaggregated using the methodology. Results show that the model is able to retain the statistical characteristics of the hourly rainfall. Copyright © 2009 IAHS Press.