A Quadratic–Exponential Model of Variogram Based on Knowing the Maximal Variability: Application to a Rainfall Time Series

Abstract

Variogram models are a valuable tool used to analyze the variability of a time series; such variability usually entails a spherical or exponential behavior, and so, models based on such functions are commonly used to fit and explain a time series. Variograms have a quasi-periodic structure for rainfall cases, and some extra steps are required to analyze their entire behavior. In this work, we detailed a procedure for a complete analysis of rainfall time series, from the construction of the experimental variogram to curve fitting with well-known spherical and exponential models, and finally proposed a novel model: quadratic–exponential. Our model was developed based on the analysis of 6 out of 30 rainfall stations from our case study: the Río Bravo–San Juan basin, and was constructed from the exponential model while introducing a quadratic behavior near to the origin and taking into account the fact that the maximal variability of the process is known. Considering a sample with diverse Hurst exponents, the stations were selected. The results obtained show robustness in our proposed model, reaching a good fit with and without the nugget effect for different Hurst exponents. This contrasts to previous models, which show good outcomes only without the nugget effect.

Keywords

• variogram
• rainfall data
• exponential model
• maximal variability
• nugget effect
• Hurst exponent