Author : M. Irani, F. Khamchinmoghadam [ Special \\\"9thSASTech-2015, Iran\\\"-2015] [Page No : 68-73] [2015]

The estimation of areal rainfall (daily, monthly, etc) is the basic need in meteorological projects. In this field, there are various methods, one of them is the finite element method. The present study aimed to estimate areal rainfall with a 16-year period (1997-2013) by using Galerkin’s method (finite element) in Mashhad plain basin for 42 stations. Therefore, it was compared with other usual methods such as arithmetic mean, Thiessen, Kriging and IDW. The analysis of Thiessen, Kriging and IDW were in ArcGIS10.0 software and finite element analysis was done by using Matlab7.08 software. Isohyetal method was the base of comparison. The results showed that finite element had higher accuracy than arithmetic mean. There was almost the same precision in comparison with Kriging and IDW methods, while Thiessen had slight errors.