scholarly journals Assessing Near Real-Time Satellite Precipitation Products for Flood Simulations at Sub-Daily Scales in a Sparsely Gauged Watershed in Peruvian Andes

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Llauca ◽  
Waldo Lavado-Casimiro ◽  
Karen León ◽  
Juan Jimenez ◽  
Kevin Traverso ◽  
...  

This study investigates the applicability of Satellite Precipitation Products (SPPs) in near real-time for the simulation of sub-daily runoff in the Vilcanota River basin, located in the southeastern Andes of Peru. The data from rain gauge stations are used to evaluate the quality of Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM–Early (IMERG-E), Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation–Near Real-Time (GSMaP-NRT), Climate Prediction Center Morphing Method (CMORPH), and HydroEstimator (HE) at the pixel-station level; and these SPPs are used as meteorological inputs for the hourly hydrological modeling. The GR4H model is calibrated with the hydrometric station of the longest record, and model simulations are also verified at one station upstream and two stations downstream of the calibration point. Comparing the sub-daily precipitation data observed, the results show that the IMERG-E product generally presents higher quality, followed by GSMaP-NRT, CMORPH, and HE. Although the SPPs present positive and negative biases, ranging from mild to moderate, they do represent the diurnal and seasonal variability of the hourly precipitation in the study area. In terms of the average of Kling-Gupta metric (KGE), the GR4H_GSMaP-NRT’ yielded the best representation of hourly discharges (0.686), followed by GR4H_IMERG-E’ (0.623), GR4H_Ensemble-Mean (0.617) and GR4H_CMORPH’ (0.606), and GR4H_HE’ (0.516). Finally, the SPPs showed a high potential for monitoring floods in the Vilcanota basin in near real-time at the operational level. The results obtained in this research are very useful for implementing flood early warning systems in the Vilcanota basin and will allow the monitoring and short-term hydrological forecasting of floods by the Peruvian National Weather and Hydrological Service.

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 338-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Menberu M. Bitew ◽  
Mekonnen Gebremichael ◽  
Lula T. Ghebremichael ◽  
Yared A. Bayissa

Abstract This study focuses on evaluating four widely used global high-resolution satellite rainfall products [the Climate Prediction Center’s morphing technique (CMORPH) product, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) near-real-time product (3B42RT), the TMPA method post-real-time research version product (3B42), and the Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks (PERSIANN) product] with a spatial resolution of 0.25° and temporal resolution of 3 h through their streamflow simulations in the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrologic model of a 299-km2 mountainous watershed in Ethiopia. Results show significant biases in the satellite rainfall estimates. The 3B42RT and CMORPH products perform better than the 3B42 and PERSIANN. The predictive ability of each of the satellite rainfall was examined using a SWAT model calibrated in two different approaches: with rain gauge rainfall as input, and with each of the satellite rainfall products as input. Significant improvements in model streamflow simulations are obtained when the model is calibrated with input-specific rainfall data than with rain gauge data. Calibrating SWAT with satellite rainfall estimates results in curve number values that are by far higher than the standard tabulated values, and therefore caution must be exercised when using standard tabulated parameter values with satellite rainfall inputs. The study also reveals that bias correction of satellite rainfall estimates significantly improves the model simulations. The best-performing model simulations based on satellite rainfall inputs are obtained after bias correction and model recalibration.


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1435
Author(s):  
Zifeng Deng ◽  
Zhaoli Wang ◽  
Chengguang Lai

With a high spatial resolution and wide coverage, satellite-based precipitation products have compensated for the shortcomings of traditional measuring methods based on rain gauge stations, such as the sparse and uneven distribution of rain gauge stations. However, the accuracy of satellite precipitation products is not high enough in some areas, and the causes of their errors are complicated. In order to better calibrate and apply the product’s data, relevant research on this kind of product is required. Accordingly, this study investigated the spatial error distribution and spatial influence factors of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) post-process 3B42V7 (hereafter abbreviated as 3B42V7) data over mainland China. This study calculated accuracy indicators based on the 3B42V7 data and daily precipitation data from 797 rain gauge stations across mainland China over the time range of 1998–2012. Then, a clustering analysis was conducted based on the accuracy indicators. Moreover, the geographical detector (GD) was used to perform the error cause analysis of the 3B42V7. The main findings of this study are the following. (1) Within mainland China, the 3B42V7 data accuracy decreased gradually from the southeast coast to the northwest inland, and shows a similar distribution for precipitation. High values of systematic error (>1.0) is mainly concentrated in the southwest Tibetan Plateau, while high values of random error (>1.0) are mainly concentrated around the Tarim Basin. (2) Mainland China can be divided into three areas by the spectral clustering method. It is recommended that the 3B42V7 can be effectively used in Area I, while in Area III the product should be calibrated before use, and the product in Area II can be used after an applicability study. (3) The GD result shows that precipitation is the most important spatial factor among the seven factors influencing the spatial error distribution of the 3B42V7 data. The relationships between spatial factors are synergistic rather than individual when influencing the product’s accuracy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 1119-1129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viviana Maggioni ◽  
Mathew R. P. Sapiano ◽  
Robert F. Adler

Abstract This study proposes a method to quantify systematic and random components of the error associated with satellite precipitation products. Specifically, the Precipitation Uncertainties for Satellite Hydrology (PUSH) model is expanded to provide an estimate of those components of the root-mean-square error. The framework is tested on the TRMM Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) 3B42, real time (3B42RT), and 3B42, version 7 (3B42V7), products over the contiguous United States, using the NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Unified gauge product as reference. Results show that 3B42V7 exhibits much smaller errors than the real-time product and that the major component of the error associated with both TMPA 3B42 products is random, as the systematic error is almost completely removed by the bias adjustment applied to the two products. A strong dependence of both systematic and random error components on satellite rain rates—with larger error components at larger rain rates—is observed for both satellite products, which suggests that future satellite bias adjustment procedures should account for this dependence. The resulting error estimates and their random and systematic components allow inferences about the accuracy of these datasets and will enhance their deployment in numerous applications, from hydrological modeling and hazard mitigation to climate change studies and water management policy.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 2493-2502 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Kneis ◽  
C. Chatterjee ◽  
R. Singh

Abstract. The paper examines the quality of satellite-based precipitation estimates for the lower Mahanadi River basin (eastern India). The considered data sets known as 3B42 and 3B42-RT (version 7/7A) are routinely produced by the tropical rainfall measuring mission (TRMM) from passive microwave and infrared recordings. While the 3B42-RT data are disseminated in real time, the gauge-adjusted 3B42 data set is published with a delay of some months. The quality of the two products was assessed in a two-step procedure. First, the correspondence between the remotely sensed precipitation rates and rain gauge data was evaluated at the sub-basin scale. Second, the quality of the rainfall estimates was assessed by analysing their performance in the context of rainfall–runoff simulation. At sub-basin level (4000 to 16 000 km2) the satellite-based areal precipitation estimates were found to be moderately correlated with the gauge-based counterparts (R2 of 0.64–0.74 for 3B42 and 0.59–0.72 for 3B42-RT). Significant discrepancies between TRMM data and ground observations were identified at high-intensity levels. The rainfall depth derived from rain gauge data is often not reflected by the TRMM estimates (hit rate < 0.6 for ground-based intensities > 80 mm day-1). At the same time, the remotely sensed rainfall rates frequently exceed the gauge-based equivalents (false alarm ratios of 0.2–0.6). In addition, the real-time product 3B42-RT was found to suffer from a spatially consistent negative bias. Since the regionalisation of rain gauge data is potentially associated with a number of errors, the above results are subject to uncertainty. Hence, a validation against independent information, such as stream flow, was essential. In this case study, the outcome of rainfall–runoff simulation experiments was consistent with the above-mentioned findings. The best fit between observed and simulated stream flow was obtained if rain gauge data were used as model input (Nash–Sutcliffe index of 0.76–0.88 at gauges not affected by reservoir operation). This compares to the values of 0.71–0.78 for the gauge-adjusted TRMM 3B42 data and 0.65–0.77 for the 3B42-RT real-time data. Whether the 3B42-RT data are useful in the context of operational runoff prediction in spite of the identified problems remains a question for further research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thierry Pellarin ◽  
Carlos Román-Cascón ◽  
Christian Baron ◽  
Rajat Bindlish ◽  
Luca Brocca ◽  
...  

Near real-time precipitation is essential to many applications. In Africa, the lack of dense rain-gauge networks and ground weather radars makes the use of satellite precipitation products unavoidable. Despite major progresses in estimating precipitation rate from remote sensing measurements over the past decades, satellite precipitation products still suffer from quantitative uncertainties and biases compared to ground data. Consequently, almost all precipitation products are provided in two modes: a real-time mode (also called early-run or raw product) and a corrected mode (also called final-run, adjusted or post-processed product) in which ground precipitation measurements are integrated in algorithms to correct for bias, generally at a monthly timescale. This paper describes a new methodology to provide a near-real-time precipitation product based on satellite precipitation and soil moisture measurements. Recent studies have shown that soil moisture intrinsically contains information on past precipitation and can be used to correct precipitation uncertainties. The PrISM (Precipitation inferred from Soil Moisture) methodology is presented and its performance is assessed for five in situ rainfall measurement networks located in Africa in semi-arid to wet areas: Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central Africa, and East Africa. Results show that the use of SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) satellite soil moisture measurements in the PrISM algorithm most often improves the real-time satellite precipitation products, and provides results comparable to existing adjusted products, such as TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission), GPCC (Global Precipitation Climatology Centre) and IMERG (Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM), which are available a few weeks or months after their detection.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 2516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarik Saouabe ◽  
El Mahdi El Khalki ◽  
Mohamed El Mehdi Saidi ◽  
Adam Najmi ◽  
Abdessamad Hadri ◽  
...  

A new precipitation dataset is provided since 2014 by the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite constellation measurements combined in the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) algorithm. This recent GPM-IMERG dataset provides potentially useful precipitation data for regions with a low density of rain gauges. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of the near real-time product (IMERG-E) compared to observed rainfall and its suitability for hydrological modeling over a mountainous watershed in Morocco, the Ghdat located upstream the city of Marrakech. Several statistical indices have been computed and a hydrological model has been driven with IMERG-E rainfall to estimate its suitability to simulate floods during the period from 2011 to 2018. The following results were obtained: (1) Compared to the rain gauge data, satellite precipitation data overestimates rainfall amounts with a relative bias of +35.61% (2) In terms of the precipitation detection capability, the IMERG-E performs better at reproducing the different precipitation statistics at the catchment scale, rather than at the pixel scale (3) The flood events can be simulated with the hydrological model using both the observed and the IMERG-E satellite precipitation data with a Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient of 0.58 and 0.71, respectively. The results of this study indicate that the GPM-IMERG-E precipitation estimates can be used for flood modeling in semi-arid regions such as Morocco and provide a valuable alternative to ground-based precipitation measurements.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fei Yuan ◽  
Limin Zhang ◽  
Khin Soe ◽  
Liliang Ren ◽  
Chongxu Zhao ◽  
...  

Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and its successor, Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM), have provided hydrologists with important precipitation data sources for hydrological applications in sparsely gauged or ungauged basins. This study proposes a framework for statistical and hydrological assessment of the TRMM- and GPM-era satellite-based precipitation products (SPPs) in both near- and post-real-time versions at sub-daily temporal scales in a poorly gauged watershed in Myanmar. It evaluates six of the latest GPM-era SPPs: Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) “Early”, “Late”, and “Final” run SPPs (IMERG-E, IMERG-L, and IMERG-F, respectively), and Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP) near-real-time (GSMaP-NRT), standard version (GSMaP-MVK), and standard version with gauge-adjustment (GSMaP-GAUGE) SPPs, and two TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis SPPs (3B42RT and 3B42V7). Statistical assessment at grid and basin scales shows that 3B42RT generally presents higher quality, followed by IMERG-F and 3B42V7. IMERG-E, IMERG-L, GSMaP-NRT, GSMaP-MVK, and GSMaP-GAUGE largely underestimate total precipitation, and the three GSMaP SPPs have the lowest accuracy. Given that 3B42RT demonstrates the best quality among the evaluated four near-real-time SPPs, 3B42RT obtains satisfactory hydrological performance in 3-hourly flood simulation, with a Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient (NSE) of 0.868, and it is comparable with the rain-gauge-based precipitation data (NSE = 0.895). In terms of post-real-time SPPs, IMERG-F and 3B42V7 demonstrate acceptable hydrological utility, and IMERG-F (NSE = 0.840) slightly outperforms 3B42V7 (NSE = 0.828). This study found that IMERG-F demonstrates comparable or even slightly better accuracy in statistical and hydrological evaluations in comparison with its predecessor, 3B42V7, indicating that GPM-era IMERG-F is the reliable replacement for TRMM-era 3B42V7 in the study area. The GPM scientific community still needs to further refine precipitation retrieving algorithms and improve the accuracy of SPPs, particularly IMERG-E, IMERG-L, and GSMaP SPPs, because ungauged basins urgently require accurate and timely precipitation data for flood control and disaster mitigation.


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudine Dieulin ◽  
Gil Mahé ◽  
Jean-Emmanuel Paturel ◽  
Soundouss Ejjiyar ◽  
Yves Tramblay ◽  
...  

The African continent has a very low density of rain gauge stations, and long time-seriesfor recent years are often limited and poorly available. In the context of global change, it is veryimportant to be able to characterize the spatio-temporal variability of past rainfall, on the basis ofdatasets issued from observations, to correctly validate simulations. The quality of the rainfall datais for instance of very high importance to improve the efficiency of the hydrological modeling,through calibration/validation experiments.The HydroSciences Montpellier Laboratory (HSM) has a long experience in collecting andmanaging hydro-climatological data. Thus, HSM had initiated a program to elaborate a referencedataset, in order to build monthly rainfall grids over the African continent, over a period of 60 years(1940/1999). The large quantity of data collected (about 7,000 measurement points were used in thisproject) allowed for interpolation using only observed data, with no statistical use of a referenceperiod. Compared to other databases that are used to build the grids of the Global HistoricalClimatology Network (GHCN) or the Climatic Research Unit of University of East Anglia, UK (CRU),the number of available observational stations (a was significantly much higher, including the end ofthe century when the number of measurement stations dropped dramatically, everywhere.Inverse distance weighed (IDW) was the chosen method to build the 720 monthly grids and amean annual grid, from rain gauges. The mean annual grid was compared to the CRU grid. The gridswere significantly different in many places, especially in North Africa, Sahel, the horn of Africa, andthe South Western coast of Africa, with HSM_SIEREM data (database HydroSciencesMontpellier_Système d’Information Environnementales pour les Ressources en Eau et leurModélisation) being closer to the observed rain gauge values. The quality of the grids computed waschecked, following two approaches—cross-validation of the two interpolation methods, ordinarykriging and inverse distance weighting, which gave a comparable reliability, with regards to theobserved data, long time-series analysis, and analysis of long-term signals over the continent,compared to previous studies. The statistical tests, computed on the observed and gridded data,detected a rupture in the rainfall regime around 1979/1980, on the scale of the whole continent; thiswas congruent with the results in the literature. At the monthly time-scale, the most widely observedsignal over the period of 1940/1999, was a significant decrease of the austral rainy season betweenMarch and May, which has not earlier been well-documented. Thus, this would lead to a furtherdetailed climatological study from this HSM_SIEREM database.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1213-1233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Mastrantonas ◽  
Biswa Bhattacharya ◽  
Yoshihiro Shibuo ◽  
Mohamed Rasmy ◽  
Gonzalo Espinoza-Dávalos ◽  
...  

Abstract After the launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission in 2014, many satellite precipitation products (SPPs) are available at finer spatiotemporal resolution and/or with reduced latency, potentially increasing the applicability of SPPs for near-real-time (NRT) applications. Therefore, there is a need to evaluate the NRT SPPs in the GPM era and investigate whether bias-correction techniques or merging of the individual products can increase the accuracy of these SPPs for NRT applications. This study utilizes five commonly used NRT SPPs, namely, CMOPRH RT, GSMaP NRT, IMERG EARLY, IMERG LATE, and PERSIANN-CCS. The evaluation is done for the Kinu basin region in Japan, an area that provides observed rainfall data with high accuracy in space and time. The selected bias correction techniques are the ratio bias correction and cumulative distribution function matching, while the merged products are derived with the error variance, inverse error variance weighting, and simple average merging techniques. Based on the results, all SPPs perform best for lower-intensity rainfall events and have challenges in providing accurate estimates for typhoon-induced rainfall (generally more than 50% underestimation) and at very fine temporal scales. Although the bias correction techniques successfully reduce the bias and improve the performance of the SPPs for coarse temporal scales, it is found that for shorter than 6-hourly temporal resolutions, both techniques are in general unable to bring improvements. Finally, the merging results in increased accuracy for all temporal scales, giving new perspectives in utilizing SPPs for NRT applications, such as flood and drought monitoring and early warning systems.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1876 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiumei Ma ◽  
Lihua Xiong ◽  
Dedi Liu ◽  
Chong-Yu Xu ◽  
Shenglian Guo

Satellite precipitation estimates (SPE), characterized by high spatial-temporal resolution, have been increasingly applied to hydrological modeling. However, the errors and bias inherent in SPE are broadly recognized. Yet, it remains unclear to what extent input uncertainty in hydrological models driven by SPE contributes to the total prediction uncertainty, resulting from difficulties in uncertainty partitioning. This study comprehensively quantified the input uncertainty contribution of three precipitation inputs (Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) near-real-time 3B42RTv7 product, TRMM post-real-time 3B42v7 product and gauge-based precipitation) in rainfall-runoff simulation, using two hydrological models, the lumped daily Ge´nie Rural (GR) and distributed Coupled Routing and Excess STorage (CREST) models. For this purpose, the variance decomposition method was applied to disaggregate the total streamflow modeling uncertainty into seven components (uncertainties in model input, parameter, structure and their three first-order interaction effects, and residual error). The results showed that the total uncertainty in GR was lowest, moderate and highest when forced by gauge precipitation, 3B42v7 and 3B42RTv7, respectively. While the total uncertainty in CREST driven by 3B42v7 was lowest among the three input data sources. These results highlighted the superiority of post-real-time 3B42v7 in hydrological modeling as compared to real-time 3B42RTv7. All the input uncertainties in CREST driven by 3B42v7, 3B42RTv7 and gauge-based precipitation were lower than those in GR correspondingly. In addition, the input uncertainty was lowest in 3B42v7-driven CREST model while highest in gauge precipitation-driven GR model among the six combination schemes (two models combined with three precipitation inputs abovementioned). The distributed CREST model was capable of making better use of the spatial distribution advantage of SPE especially for the TRMM post-real-time 3B42v7 product. This study provided new insights into the SPE’s hydrological utility in the context of uncertainty, being significant for improving the suitability and adequacy of SPE to hydrological application.


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