ESTIMATION OF MEAN RAINFALL FOR SARADA RIVER

BASIN USING THIESSEN POLYGON METHOD IN QGIS

Mini project-1 report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for award of
the Degree of
Bachelor of Technology
in
Civil Engineering
Submitted by
M.S.V.V. Ram Durga Prasad (20135A0115)
P. Ramesh (20135A0120)
P. Sri Jahnavi (20135A0121)
Under the Esteemed Guidance of

Dr. CH. SURYANARAYANA

(Assistant Professor)
Ms. Y. BHUVANESWARI DEVI
(Assistant Professor)

GAYATRI VIDYA PARISHAD COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

(AUTONOMOUS)
(Approved by AICTE & Affiliated to JNTU - Kakinada
Accredited by NAAC with A Grade with a CGPA of 3.47/4.00)
MADHURAWADA, VISAKHAPATNAM-530048
FEBRUARY 2022

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 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that report titled “ESTIMATION OF MEAN RAINFALL

FOR SARADA RIVER BASIN USING THIESSEN POLYGON
METHOD IN QGIS” is a bonafide work carried out during the academic year 2021-
2022 by

M.S.V.V. RAM DURGA PRASAD 20135A0115

P. RAMESH 20135A0120

P. SRI JAHNAVI 20135A0121

Under the guidance of Dr. CH. SURYANARAYANA and Ms. Y. BHUVANESWARI

DEVI, Assistant Professors, Department of Civil Engineering, Gayatri Vidya Parishad
College of Engineering (Autonomous), Visakhapatnam in the partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the award of Bachelor of Technology in Civil Engineering.

Dr. CH. SURYANARAYANA Dr. G. PAPA RAO

M. Tech, Ph.D. M.E, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor Head of the Department
Project Guide Civil Engineering

Ms. Y. BHUVANESWARI DEVI

B. Tech, M.E
Assistant Professor
Project Guide

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to express our deep sense of gratitude to our esteemed institute Gayatri
Vidya Parishad College of Engineering (Autonomous), which has provided us an
opportunity to fulfil our cherished desire.

We express our deep sense of Gratitude to Prof. Dr. G. PAPA RAO, Head of the
Department of Civil Engineering, Gayatri Vidya Parishad College of Engineering
for giving us an opportunity to do the project in college.

We express our sincere thanks to our Principal Prof. Dr. A. B. KOTESWARARAO

for his encouragement to us during the course of this project, giving us a chance to
explore and learn new technologies in the form of mini project.

We express our profound gratitude and our deep indebtedness to our guides Dr. CH.
SURYANARAYANA and Ms. Y. BHUVANESWARI DEVI whose valuable
suggestions, guidance and comprehensive assistance helped us a lot in realizing our
present project.

We deeply obliged to our faculty coordinators Mr. D. PREETHI Assistant Professor,

Mrs. J. SUMA SREE, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering,
Gayatri Vidya Parishad College of Engineering (Autonomous) for keeping us
motivated and helping through the headway.

Finally, we would also like to thank all the members of the teaching and non-teaching
staff of the Civil engineering Department for all their support in completion of our
project.

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 ABSTRACT

Precipitation is the descent of water from the atmosphere to the earth's surface in the
form of rain, snow, fog, dew, and hail. Rain gauges can be used to measure the amount
of water falling on the earth's surface. Rainfall becomes one of the data demands in a
number of human activities, particularly in the research of water availability for
consumption, irrigation building design, and mapping of flooded areas. The present
study was conducted to measure the total amount of monthly and annual rainfall for
Sarada river basin by Thiessen polygon method. This Thiessen polygon method may
determine rain fall for a specific area by dividing the entire area into small polygons. It
is also known as the weightage average method, and it is a very precise method when
compared with arithmetic mean method. The Thiessen polygon is a widely used method
for calculating mean areal precipitation for a watershed based on rain gauge data. The
rainfall data of year 2010 of 20 rain gauge stations of Sarada river basin were collected
from Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). Geographical Information System (GIS)
tools were used in the present study to interpret the results. The QGIS 3.16.15 software
and different statistical analysis were carried out to get output results.

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 CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE...............................................................................................................................2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT..............................................................................................................3

ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................................4

LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................................................6

LIST OF TABLES..........................................................................................................................7

1. INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................8

2. STUDY AREA.....................................................................................................................11

3. METHODOLOGY...............................................................................................................12

3.1 PROCEDURE FOR DRAWING POLYGONS..................................................................13

3.2 WEIGHTAGE FACTORS..................................................................................................21

3.3 RAINFALL DATA.............................................................................................................22

3.4 CALCULATIONS..............................................................................................................24

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS.............................................................................................25

CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................28

REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................29

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 LIST OF FIGURES

Fig 3.1: Creating a point layer

Fig 3.2: Adding rain gauge stations coordinates

Fig 3.3: Points Map

Fig 3.4: Basin Map

Fig 3.5: Basin with Point Map

Fig 3.6: Selection of polygons option

Fig 3.7: Creating Voronoi polygons

Fig 3.8: Voronoi Polygons Map with extra lines

Fig 3.9: Thiessen Polygon Map

Fig 4.1: Monthly mean rainfall for Sarada river basin

Fig 4.2: Annual mean rainfall for each station

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 LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.11: Attribute table for raingauge stations coordinates

Table 3.12: Attribute table for areas

Table 3.2: Thiessen weights for rain gauge stations

Table 3.31: Rainfall data for 1-5 stations

Table 3.32: Rainfall data for 6-10 stations

Table 3.33: Rainfall data for 11-15 stations

Table 3.34: rainfall data for 15-20 stations

Table 3.4: Calculation table

Table 4.1: Monthly mean rainfall for Sarada river basin

Table 4.2: Annual mean rainfall for each station

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 1. INTRODUCTION

A wide range of meteorological and hydrological applications need knowledge of

rainfall variability and inadequacy over time and space, particularly in locations with
few rainfall stations or data. Rainfall, a liquid water droplet released from clouds
generated by condensation of water vapour in the earth's atmosphere, is a vital part of the
hydrological cycles that regulate water availability, supply, and water catastrophes
across the world. As a result, rainfall and national prosperity are linked; without
sufficient rainfall, both farmers and city dwellers may be unable to quench their thirst,
irrigate their field crops, and go on with their social, commercial, and industrial
activities.
Average Rainfall is estimated accurately for the effective use of water resources and
optimal planning of water structures and availability. The use of data mining techniques
to predict rainfall and its consequences, may prove significant in the prediction of
accurate rainfall that will help in the growth of agricultural sectors and the farmers can
take the decisions accordingly.
Rainfall includes all forms of water particles, whether liquid (rain or drizzle) or solid
(hail or snow), that fall from clouds and reaches the ground. The rain gauge is the
standard instrument for recording rainfall, which is measured in millimeters. Rainfall is
generally observed daily at 9 am local time.
The rainfall will never be uniform over the entire area of the basin but varies in
intensities and duration from place to place. The rainfall recorded by each rain gauge
station should be weighted according to the area it represents. The ratio of the area of the
polygon to the area of the total catchment area. The summation of the weights should be
unity.
The entire Sarada river basin consists 20 rain gauge stations like Hukumpeta,
Devarapalle, Cheedikada, Madugula, Paderu, G.Madugula, Rolugunta, Ravikantam,
Butchayyapeta, K.kotapadu, Sabbavaram, Parvada, Anakapalle, Munagapaka,
Kasimkota, Makavarapalem, S Rayavaram, Yelamanchili, Rambilli, Atchutapuraram.
The previous rainfall data is collected for these rain gauge stations from Indian
meteorological department (IMD). The area is determined by using QGIS software that

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means the entire is divided into polygons and area is determined. The daily rainfall data
is collected and it can be converted into monthly rainfall data.
In this project we use Quantum geographical information system (QGIS) software for
finding the areas of the polygons from the obtained area and collected rainfall we can
estimated the mean rainfall of Sarada river basin. First we have to know what is GIS.
GIS – stands for geographic information system. GIS is a conceptualized frame work
that provides the ability to capture and analyze spatial and geographic data. GIS is a
computer system for capturing storing checking and displaying data related to positions
on earth surface. GIS is first coined by ROGER TOMLINSON in [1963]. The
applications of GIS in civil engineering are planning, hydrology, structural engineering,
management, transporting, site investigations for dams, bridges etc.
A very capable open source (free) GIS software. It encompasses most of the
functionality included in ArcGIS. If you are looking for a GIS application for your
Mac or Linux environment, QGIS is a wonderful choice given its multi-platform
support. Built into the current versions of QGIS are functions from another open
source software: GRASS. GRASS has been around since the 1980’s and has many
advanced GIS data manipulation functions however, its use is not as intuitive as that
of QGIS or ArcGIS (hence the preferred QGIS alternative).
To work in a GIS environment, real world observations (objects or events that can be
recorded in 2D or 3D space) need to be reduced to spatial entities. These spatial
entities can be represented in a GIS as a vector data model or a raster data model.
Vector features can be decomposed into three different geometric primitives:  points,
poly lines and polygons. A raster data model uses an array of cells, or pixels, to
represent real-world objects. Raster datasets are commonly used for representing and
managing imagery, surface temperatures, digital elevation models, and numerous
other entities.
A raster can be thought of as a special case of an area object where the area is divided
into a regular grid of cells. But a regularly spaced array of marked points may be a
better analogy since Raster are stored as an array of values where each cell is defined
by a single coordinate pair inside of most GIS environments. Implicit in raster data
model is a value associated with each cell or pixel. This is in contrast to a vector
model that may or may not have a value associated with the geometric primitive. Also

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note that a raster data structure is square or rectangular. So, if the features in a raster
do not cover the full square or rectangular extent, their pixel values will be set to no
data values. This study aims to calculate the rainfall of Sarada river basin using the
Thiessen polygon method based on Geographic Information System (GIS) application.

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 2. STUDY AREA

River Sarada is a medium-sized river in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh,

India. The geographic coordinates of the river are north latitude 17.25 to 18.17 and east
longitude of 82.32 to 83.06. The catchment area of the basin is 2,665 square kilo-meters.
It rises at an elevation of 1,000 meters in the Eastern Ghats. It runs eastwards for a
distance 122 kilo-meters and joins the Bay of Bengal. The basin is surrounded by River
Nagavali in the north, River Gosthani, Gambiramguda, Megadrigedda in the east Bay of
Bengal in the South and Machhkund sub-basin of the River Godavari in the west.
Visakhapatnam is the major city in the basin. Yelamanchili and Anakapalli are important
towns in the basin. The entire Sarada river basin consists 20 rain gauge stations like
Hukumpeta, Devarapalle, Cheedikada, Madugula, Paderu, G.Madugula, Rolugunta,
Ravikantam, Butchayyapeta, K.kotapadu, Sabbavaram, Parvada, Anakapalle,
Munagapaka, Kasimkota, Makavarapalem, S Rayavaram, Yelamanchili, Rambilli,
Atchutapuraram.

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 3. METHODOLOGY

The Thiessen polygon, introduced by A.H. Thiessen, is a widely used technique for
calculating mean areal precipitation for a catchment using Raingauge readings (1911).
The Thiessen technique is based on the concept that measured quantities at each station
may be transferred halfway to the next station in any direction, implying that rainfall at
any position is equivalent to rainfall reported at the nearest gauge. The relative areas of
the rain gauges are approximated using the Thiessen polygon network, and the weights
of the rain gauges are calculated based on their respective areas. The perpendicular
bisectors of the lines connecting adjacent stations are used to create the polygons. The
area of each polygon is used to weight the quantity of rainfall at the polygon's central
station. The polygon must be updated if any station's quantity is missing.

where, P is the weighted rainfall for sub-catchment,

Pi is the rainfall value of each contributing rain gauge station, and
Ai is the area of each contributing Thiessen polygon.

Thiessen (Voronoi) polygons associate all locations in a two-dimensional (2D) space

with the closest member of a point set with respect to the Euclidean distance. Thiessen
polygons can be viewed as a proximity method, an automated topology, a basic data
structure, a delineation of points’ influence regions, an assignment of neighbours, a
calculation of weighting factors, and so on. The importance of Thiessen polygons lies in
the integrated considerations of location, distance, influence range, and topological
relationship.

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3.1 PROCEDURE FOR DRAWING POLYGONS
The following are the procedure for drawing the Thiessen polygons by using the QGIS
software.
Step:1
 From INDIAN METEOROLOGICAL DEPARTMENT (IMD) has been
collected the rain gauge stations of Sarada river basin.
 The collected rain gauge stations co-ordinates data of the Sarada basin has been
recorded in the excel sheet and the extension is converted into the csv format, as
it accepts only that csv format.
 Now after that the rain gauge station co- ordinates should be added in the
working area of the software the following procedure was done for adding the
rain gauge station co-ordinates.
 Firstly, go to tool bar and select the LAYER option there click on it now choose
the ADD LAYER from that select the ADD DELIMITED TEXT LAYER.

Fig 3.1: Creating a point layer

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 After clicking on the DELIMITED TEXT LAYER it displays the following
image

Fig 3.2: Adding rain gauge stations coordinates

 After displaying the picture, give the file name in the csv format then in the file
format select the csv option in the geometry definition option select the point co-
ordinates choose the x-field and y-field, now select the add and the close, then
the points will be displayed on the layout.

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 Fig 3.3: Points map

Step: 2

 Place the Sarada river basin map in the layout by taking it from the file explorer
in the form of SHAPE FILE.

Fig 3.4: Basin Map

 After adding both the raingauge station co-ordinates of Sarada basin and shape
file of the Sarada river basin it appears like the below image:

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 Fig 3.5: Basin with Point Map

Step:3

 After adding the shape file and co-ordinates divide the basin into number of
polygons by selecting the VECTOR which is in the tools bar and the select the
geometric tools now go to the Voronoi polygons options.

Fig 3.6: Selection of polygons option

 After selecting the Voronoi polygons, the image below will appear, and the
input layer will be set to raingauge stations coordinates, followed by a run and
close.

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Fig 3.7: Creating Voronoi polygons

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  After run and close, the Sarada river basin divided into polygons and image will
be displayed as follows

Fig 3.8: Voronoi Polygons Map with extra lines

Step: 4

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  Select a geo-processing tool from the vector, then choose an intersection option
to eliminate the superfluous lines. The polygon map appears as follows when the
excess lines are removed.

Fig 3.9: Thiessen Polygon Map

Open the attribute tables for both raingauge station locations and basin map after
splitting the basin map into polygons. After viewing the attribute table for the basin map,
divide the area for each polygon using the field calculator. The following are attribute
table for both stations and area of polygons.

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Table 3.11: Attribute table for raingauge stations coordinates

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Table 3.12: Attribute table for areas

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3.2 WEIGHTAGE FACTORS

Table 3.2: Thiessen weights for rain gauge stations

S. Catchment
N Rain Gauge Station
o   1 2 3 4 5 6
 
0.04 ---  ---  --- 
1 HUKUMPETA ---  0.11
4
0.95
2 DEVARAPALLE  ---  0.33 ---  0.03 --- 
6
---  ---  0.27 0.26 ---  --- 
3 CHEEDIKADA
1 4
---  0.21 0.28 0.30 ---  --- 
4 MADUGULA
6 4 8
---  0.12 0.00 0.07 ---  --- 
5 PADERU
5 5 5
---  0.20 ---  ---  ---  --- 
6 G. MADUGULA
9
---  0.02 ---  ---  ---  --- 
7 ROLUGUNTA
5
---  ---  ---  ---  0.02
8 RAVIKAMATHAM  --- 
6
---  ---  ---  0.01 --- 
9 BUTCHAYYAPETA 0.09
8
---  ---  ---  ---  0.41 --- 
10 K KOTAPADU
4
---  ---  ---  ---  0.16 --- 
11 SABBAVARAM
1
12 PARAVADA ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  0.02
---  ---  ---  0.18 0.20 0.00
13 ANAKAPALLE
5 2 9
---  ---  ---  ---  0.01
14 MUNAGAPAKA 0.08
2
---  ---  ---  ---  0.08 0.19
15 KASIMKOTA
3 3
---  ---  ---  ---  ---  0.03
16 MAKAVARAPALEM
4
---  ---  ---  ---  ---  0.05
17 S RAYAVARAM
1
---  ---  ---  ---  ---  0.22
18 YELAMANCHILI
9
---  ---  ---  ---  ---  0.10
19 RAMBILLI
9
---  ---  ---  ---  ---  0.15
20 ATCHUTAPURAM
8

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3.3 RAINFALL DATA

Table 3.31: Rainfall data for 1-5 stations

Table 3.32: Rainfall data for 6-10 stations

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Table 3.33: Rainfall data for 11-15 stations

Table 3.34: rainfall data for 15-20 stations

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3.4 CALCULATIONS

Table 3.4: Calculation table

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 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The raingauge only shows the depth of rain in the region where the station is placed,
thus an area should be approximated based on that measurement. The Thiessen polygon
method is one way for calculating average rainfall in a given region. Hukumpeta,
Devarapalle, Cheedikada, Madugula, Paderu, G.Madugula, Rolugunta, Ravikantam,
Butchayyapeta, K.kotapadu, Sabbavaram, Parvada, Anakapalle, Munagapaka,
Kasimkota, Makavarapalem, S Rayavaram, Yelamanchili, Rambilli, Atchutapuraram.

The monthly average rainfall for the Sarada river basin is estimated using the Thiessen
polygon technique, and the results are presented in a graph (Fig 4.1). The yearly average
rainfall for the Sarada river basin is obtained by aggregating all of the monthly average
data and dividing it by 12.

After calculating, the annual average rainfall for the Sarada river basin is found to be
11.89 cm. The annual mean rainfall for each rain gauge station in the Sarada river basin
is derived using the rainfall data for each station and presented in a graph (Fig 4.2).

Table 4.1: Monthly mean rainfall for Sarada river basin

S.NO MONTH MONTHLY MEAN RAINFALL
(cm)
1 JANUARY 0
2 FEBRUARY 0
3 MARCH 0
4 APRIL 0
5 MAY 0
6 JUNE 17.85
7 JULY 27.69
8 AUGUST 14.55
9 SEPTEMBER 22.37
10 OCTOBER 17.54
11 NOVEMBER 27.02
12 DECEMBER 15.71

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 MONTHLY MEAN RAINFALL
30

25

20

15

10

0
MARCH

APRIL
JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MAY

JUNE

AUGUST
JULY

SEPTEMBER

DECEMBER
OCTOBER

NOVEMBER
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Fig 4.1: Monthly mean rainfall for Sarada river basin

Table 4.2: Annual mean rainfall for each station

S.NO STATIONS ANNUAL MEAN RAINFALL FOR EACH
STATION
1 HUKUMPETA (P1) 0.34
2 DEVARAPALLE(P2) 1.74
3 CHEEDIKADA(P3) 1.13
4 MADUGULA(P4) 1.27
5 PADERU(P5) 0.13
6 G MADUGULA(P6) 0.97
7 ROLUGUNTA(P7) 0.08
8 RAVIKAMATHAM(P8) 1.38
9 BUTCHAYYAPETA(P9) 0.42
10 ANAKAPALLE(P10) 0.007
11 K KOTAPADU(P11) 0.08
12 SABBAVARAM(P12) 0.55
13 PARAVADA(P13) 0.25
14 MUNAGAPAKA(P14) 0.28
15 KASIMKOTA(P15) 0.58
16 MAKAVARAPALEM(P16) 0.15
17 S RAYAVARAM(P17) 0.21
18 YELAMANCHILI(P18) 1.13
19 RAMBILLI(P19) 0.5
20 ATCHUTAPURAM(P20) 0.73

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 0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2

1
HUKUMPETA

2
DEVARAPALLE

3
CHEEDIKADA

4
MADUGULA

5
PADERU

6
G.MADUGULA

7
ROLUGUNTA

8
RAVIKAMATHAM

9
BUTCHAYYAPETA

10
ANAKAPALLE
11
K.KOTAPADU
12

SABBAVARAM
13

PARAVADA
14

MUNAGAPAKA
15

KASIMKOTA
Fig 4.2: Annual mean rainfall for each station
16

MAKAVARAPALEM
ANNUAL MEAN RAINFALL FOR EACH STATION

17

S RAYAVARAM
18

YELAMANCHILI
19

RAMBILLI
20

ATCHUTAPURAM

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 CONCLUSION

The main aim of this study to measure the total amount of monthly and annual rainfall
for Sarada river basin by Thiessen polygon method. It is very accurate method compare
to the arithmetic mean method. Rainfall becomes one of the data demands in a number
of human activities, particularly in the research of water availability for consumption,
irrigation building design, and mapping of flooded areas. The rainfall data of year 2010
of 20 rain gauge stations of Sarada river basin were collected from IMD. Geographical
Information System (GIS) tools were used in the present study to interpret the results.
The QGIS 3.16.15 software and different statistical analysis were carried out to get
output results. The results show that the monthly average rainfall for Sarada river basin
and annual mean rainfall. Based on the analysis and calculations the annual average
rainfall for Sarada river basin in 2010 is obtained as 11.89cm.

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 REFERENCES

1. Sudiram, Slamet and Ali, 2020. “Rainfall Analysis of the Makassar City using
Thiessen Polygon Method Based on GIS”, Laboratory of Planning and Forestry
Information System, Faculty of Forestry, Hasanuddin University, 90245 Makassar,
Indonesia.

2. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F1-4020-4497-6_220

3.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QGIS#:~:text=QGIS%20functions%20as
%20geographic%20information,%2C%20line%2C%20or%20polygon%20features

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarada_River

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