Maldives Subnational Rainfall: Dekadal Indicators and Forecasts

Dekadal rainfall indicators for the Maldives aggregated by subnational administrative units, produced by the World Food Programme. The data integrates CHIRPS v2 satellite-station observations with CHIRPS-GEFS forecasts to provide 10-day, 1-month, and 3-month rainfall totals and anomalies. Updates occur six times per month to transition from initial forecasts to final observations.

Use Cases

• Drought monitoring using the 3-month rainfall anomaly (r3q) to identify prolonged moisture deficits
• Agricultural planning by comparing current 10-day rainfall (rfh) against the long-term average (rfh_avg)
• Flood risk assessment by analyzing 1-month rolling aggregations (r1h) in relation to subnational administrative boundaries

Strengths

• Uses CHIRPS v2 which blends satellite imagery with in-situ station data
• Includes subnational Pcode references for easy joining with other humanitarian datasets
• Provides a type column to distinguish between forecast, preliminary, and final observations

Limitations

• Spatial resolution is limited by the underlying CHIRPS pixel density, as indicated by the n_pixels column
• Temporal lag exists for final products, which are only published mid-month for the previous month

Provenance

Source

World Food Programme (WFP)

Collection Method

Satellite imagery (CHIRPS v2) and in-situ station data aggregation.

Freshness

Updated six times per month following a fixed dekadal schedule.

Geography

Maldives