T. Velghe et al., EVALUATION OF CLUSTER-BASED RECTANGULAR PULSES POINT PROCESS MODELS FOR RAINFALL, Water resources research, 30(10), 1994, pp. 2847-2857
This technical note presents a comparison of cluster-based point rainf
all models using the historical hourly rainfall data observed between
1949 and 1976 at Denver, Colorado. The Denver data are used to analyze
the performance of three classes of models, namely, the Bartlett-Lewi
s model, the geometric Neyman-Scott model and the Poisson Neyman-Scott
model. The original formulation of the structure of each model, as we
ll as the modified description developed in order to improve the zero
depth probability, is considered in this study. Rodriguez-Iturbe et al
. (1987a) concluded that it is unlikely that empirical analysis of rai
nfall data can be used to choose between the Bartlett-Lewis model and
the Neyman-Scott model. In a subsequent paper, Rodriguez-Iturbe et al.
(1987b) argued that the choice of the distribution of the number of c
ells per storm for the Neyman-Scott model, either geometric or Poisson
, has no general bias effect on the stochastic structure. Some investi
gators (e.g., Burlando and Rosso, 1991), however, reported results con
tradictory to those of the previous authors. In light of these observa
tions this note investigates the performance of the cluster-based mode
ls. For the Denver data the geometric Neyman-Scott model yields better
results compared to the Poisson Neyman-Scott model. Moreover, the Bar
tlett-Lewis model is shown to be very sensitive to the sets of moment
equations used in the parameter estimation. This sensitivity is not ob
served in the Neyman-Scott scheme and is believed to be a drawback for
applying the Bartlett-Lewis model in hydrologic simulation studies.