UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES

C.M. Recto Ave., Lapasan, Cagayan de Oro City

CE51:
ENGINEERING
HYDROLOGY
ELEDIA, PATRICIA NICOLE P.
GA-AS, ADRIAN P.
GEMINA, LOUISSE MAY T.
JAVIER, JENNIFER D.
NAPAY, PEARLYNE JOY D.
BS CE 4A_B1
 CALCULATING
AVERAGE
PRECIPITATION DATA
USING THIESSEN
POLYGON METHOD
Narrative Report:

As engineers, there is a need to determine the amount of precipitation over a

specific area like a watershed. The technological advancements have led to geographic

information system (GIS) that did not only simplify the course’s technicalities, but it

likewise gave ease and a more accurate output.

Over the holidays, many confusions have arisen since our knowledge about using

this software — ARC-GIS — is truly insufficient. But with this existing hurdle, we were

able to find ways on how to amplify our ideas by learning from online tutorials. Though,

we may have gained an inkling on how the whole concept works, it still took us a long

time figuring out the ins and outs of the software.

As we began the process of employing the average precipitation over an area by

means of the Thiessen Polygon approach, we firstly obtained the data which is incredibly

similar with that of the Normal Ratio Method from the previous activity. But, the date we

have employed upon plotted, we happened to discover that only one station was inside

the area of concern whilst the three others were outside the borders. Despite this

drawback, we still proceeded to the second step which is we dividing the catchment’s

polygons by lines that are equidistant between two of the adjacent stations. Third, we

bisected the polygons on each line right at its center by forming a 90-degree angle.

Fourth, we then worked out on computing the area enclosed in the polygon. Fifth, we then

solved the polygon’s area by using the general formula of the said method which is:

average precipitation equal to the summation of area at that station times precipitation at

that station all over total area. Sixth, instead of comparing whether the outcome between

the two-arithmetic method — Thiessen and Isohyetal — we did not push through the

whole process of computing the data because of one, it was not required and two, due to

time constraints.

Overall, the process was arduous but in the end process fulfilling. Despite the

many constraints encountered, especially dealing with a new software, we were still

able to figure out the way out of this wormhole we were situated in.
I. Graphing the four locations using ArcMap Application.
 FIGURE I. THIESSEN POLYGON

A1= 0.0252 km2

2

A3= 0.0063 km2

A4= 0.0302 km2

A2 = 0.046 km2
2

FIGURE II. THIESSEN POLYGON

II. TABULATING RESULTS

THIESSEN POLYGON
STATION PRECIPITATION AREA PA
A 264.44 0.0252 6.663888
B 439.42 0.046 20.21332
C 318.06 0.0063 2.003778
D 459.84 0.0302 13.887168
370.44 0.1077 42.768154 P= 397.104494

FORMULA:
∑𝑛
𝑖=1(𝑃𝑖 𝐴𝑖 )
𝑃= ∑𝑛
𝑖=1 𝐴𝑖

P= 42.768154
0.1077
P= 397.104494 mm