Comparison of TRMM Data with Rain Gauge Observations in the Upper Huaihe River Basin of China

Abstract

In this study, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) version 7 satellite rainfall product, TRMM 3B42 (V7), was validated using rain gauge measurements in the Upper Huaihe Basin, China. This validation was carried out at monthly and annual temporal scales for an 11-year period using four selected grids with six, four, two and one rain gauge station (s) located within the TRMM grid respectively; the rain gage measurements for grids with more than one rain gauge were averaged. This study found that the validation of the TRMM dataset in grids where there were adequate rain gauge were present to capture the distributed and stochastic nature of rainfall with very good correlation (0.87-0.94) and with very little relative bias when the rain gage accumulations were compared with the TRMM estimates. From the study we found that the TRMM dataset can be used as precipitation input for hydrological modeling at monthly and annual scales for sustainable water resources management in the Upper Huaihe River and even in un-gaged or sparsely gaged basins in other parts of the world.