STOCHASTIC ANALYSIS OF RAINFALL EVENT IN SUB-SAHARA AFRICA

Elemide Oyebola Adebola, Federal College of Agriculture, Nigeria

 Abstract

Rainfall , the major form  of precipitation in most part of the world is important component of hydrological cycle.
Accurate prediction of rainfall attributes are necessary for the timing of irrigation, agricultural operations  activities  and other hydraulics facilities.
Since rainfall exhibit natural variability, it analysis in  stochastic frame work provides a more realistic premise. Sub-Sahara Africa, the project area is located in the South Eastern and the central part Africa. It experiences two seasons, the wet season spans from march to October. High population of  sub-Sahara Africa engage in farming and related activities, predominantly rainfed agricultural practices.
This paper reports  on a stochastic analysis  of rain fall data for sub-Sahara africa , with an aim of determining the most appropriate probability distribution for the data. The  analysis was base on five years 2003 to 2008 for  sub-Sahara Africa.
The mean , standard deviation, coefficient of variation and other statistics for the rainfall values were computed and the data were  analyzed using the  normal lognormal, long Pearson type II. plotting  position probabilities and the number of raining  dates were determined.