Analysis of annual maximum rainfall in Kelantan, Malaysia

Rainfall is one of the fundamental determinants of crops quality and productivity. Maximum rainfall events like floods and storms may bring negative impacts to the physiological activities of crops. Consequently, the analysis of annual maximum rainfall has raised considerable interest in recent years. In this study, analysis of annual maximum rainfall was carried out in Kelantan River Basin, Malaysia. The first part of analysis was the detection of stationarity using Mann Kendall test. The second part involved fitting of six probability distribution, namely Beta, Gamma, Gumbel, Generalized Extreme Value (GEV), Log-Pearson type III, and three parameter Weibull distribution to the annual series. Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Anderson Darling and Chi-Squared tests were applied to identify the best fitting distribution and the assessments were based on the total test scores. The results showed that the annual maximum rainfall is stationary and there is no trend detected within the series. Overall, GEV distribution was found to be the most suitable distribution for the examined series by giving the highest test scores from all the tests. The outcomes of this study can be used as reference for the climate change assessment and agricultural planning in Kelantan.