Assessment of Rainfall Enhancement in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Utilizing Statistical Models

Cloud seeding operations to enhance rainfall have been implemented for over a century, giving rise to diverse perspectives within the scientific community. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has conducted such operations yielding promising results. The complexity of cloud formation and precipitation processes, and in some cases the limited availability of data, are some of the challenges in studying the microphysical processes of rainfall enhancement and the provision of accurate rainfall assessment of cloud seeding. There are several models that can use a statistical relationship to describe the effects of cloud seeding. The models will be used to describe the effects of cloud seeding and be trained using historical data of rainfall, both during a non-seeding and a cloud seeding period. The predicted rainfall will be compared to the observed rainfall to estimate the effect of the cloud seeding. The findings of this study will also suggest the importance of models for studying methodologies to improve the outcome of rainfall enhancement projects.