Analysis of Spatio-temporal Characteristics of Rainfall Using Precipitation Concentration Index (PCI) and Heatmap for Solapur District of Maharashtra, India

The current study is concerned with the spatio-temporal variability of the annual precipitation concentration in the Solapur district of Maharashtra. Rainfall from the year 1971 to 2013 has been considered for the current analysis. Along with the Precipitation Concentration Index (PCI), in this study heatmap and spatial interpolation approach were used to show the rainfall distribution in the Solapur district. The PCI has the potentiality in managing the water resources and risk related to natural hazards like drought as it indicates the fluctuations in the concentration. The fluctuations in the spatio-temporal pattern of rainfall have a great impact on the frequency of droughts. In this paper, monthly PCI in Solapur district has been carried out from 1971 to 2013. In addition to PCI, heatmap and spatial interpolation approach were used to show the spatial distribution of rainfall and PCI in the study region. Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW), a spatial interpolation technique was applied in a geoinformatics platform to show the rainfall surface. The PCI has the potentiality in managing the water resources and risk related to natural hazards like drought as it indicates the fluctuations in the concentration. Another, synoptic visualization technique named heatmap has been employed at individual weather station level to display the rainfall pattern.