Rainfall Estimation Model in Seasonal Zone and Non-Seasonal Zone Regions Using Weather Radar Imagery Based on a Gradient Boosting Algorithm

Abstract

Indonesia, a country located in the equatorial region with hilly and valley lands surrounded by vast oceans, has complex rainfall patterns that can generally be classified into three types: equatorial, monsoon, and local. Rainfall estimates have only been derived based on local data and characteristics so far, and have not yet been developed based on universal data for all of Indonesia. This study aimed to develop a rainfall estimation model based on weather radar data throughout Indonesia using ensemble machine learning with the gradient boosting algorithm. The proposed rainfall estimation model is universal, can be applied to different rainfall pattern areas, and has a temporal resolution of 10 min. It is based on determining the root mean square error (RMSE) and R-squared (R2) values. Research was conducted in six areas with different rainfall patterns: Bandar Lampung and Banjarmasin with monsoon rain patterns, Pontianak and Deli Serdang with equatorial rain patterns, and the Gorontalo and Biak areas with local rain patterns. The analysis of the proposed model reveals that the best hyperparameters for the learning rate, maximum depth, and number of trees are 0.7, 3, and 50, respectively. The results demonstrate that the estimated rainfall in the six areas was very accurate, with RMSE < 2 mm/h and R2 > 0.7.