ARIMA model for forecasting of evaporation of Solapur station of Maharashtra, India

This paper deals with the stochastic modeling of weekly evaporation by using Seasonal ARIMA model for weekly evaporation data for the period of 1987-2008 with a total of 1144 readings for semi-arid Solapur station in Maharashtra. ARIMA models of 1st order were selected based on observing autocorrelation function (ACF) and partial autocorrelation function (PACF) of the weekly evaporation series. The model parameters were obtained by using maximum likelihood method with the help of three tests (i.e., standard error. ACF and PACF of residuals and Akaike Information Criteria). Adequacy of the selected models was determined. The ARIMA model that passed the adequacy test was selected for forecasting. The Seasonal ARIMA (1, 0, 1) (1, 0, 1)(52) with lower RMSE is finally selected for forecasting of weekly evaporation values, at Solapur.