NEWS

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Rfactor 0.2.0 (2026-09-12)

New features

• Added rf_calculate_mean_rfactor() for calculating multi-year mean rainfall erosivity from monthly or yearly R-factor values.

• For yearly input, the function calculates the arithmetic mean of available yearly R-factor values.

• For monthly input, the function calculates a separate multi-year mean for each available calendar month.

• Missing R values are excluded from multi-year means, while genuine R = 0 values are retained.

• Added n_years to report the number of non-missing R-factor values contributing to each multi-year mean.

• Missing years and month-year combinations are not generated or imputed. Calendar months completely absent from the supplied input are not created.

• Mean annual rainfall erosivity is calculated directly from yearly R-factor values rather than by summing multi-year monthly means.

Documentation

• Extended the package workflow documentation to distinguish monthly and yearly erosivity totals from multi-year mean rainfall erosivity.

• Updated the README and getting-started vignette with examples of rf_calculate_mean_rfactor().

• Updated the methods and validation vignette to document multi-year averaging rules and their relationship to record completeness and representativeness.

• Added links to the official USDA Agricultural Research Service RIST resources in the validation documentation.

Testing

• Added tests for yearly and monthly multi-year averaging, including handling of missing values, genuine zero values, absent calendar months, duplicate periods, and invalid year, month, and R-factor values.

Rfactor 0.1.0

Initial release

• Added tools for reading and validating timestamped precipitation records, including sparse records with temporal gaps.

• Added configurable rainfall-event identification using an elapsed storm-break duration.

• Added continuous rolling maximum rainfall-intensity calculations.

• Added rainfall kinetic-energy calculations using:

  • Brown and Foster (1987);
  • McGregor et al. (1995);
  • Laws and Parsons (1943).

• Added event EI30 rainfall-erosivity calculations and configurable precipitation- and intensity-based event omission criteria.

• Added monthly and yearly aggregation of contributing event EI30 values.

• Added support for configurable rainfall-intensity durations and fixed-interval rainfall resolutions compatible with EI30 calculation.

• Added optional RIST-compatible handling of single-record rainfall events.

• Added empirical validation against RIST 3.99.10 using synthetic fixed-interval rainfall data, including:

  • storm-break boundary and intermediate-rainfall experiments;
  • strict omission-threshold tests;
  • kinetic-energy equation comparisons;
  • 1-, 5-, 10-, 15-, and 30-minute temporal-resolution comparisons.

• Added validation with real high-resolution and sparse historical precipitation records from Meteo Romania (National Meteorological Administration). Original Meteo Romania precipitation records are not distributed with the package or public repository.

• Added package documentation, a getting-started vignette, and a methods and validation vignette.