Abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the applicability of medium and long-term satellite rainfall estimation (SRE) precipitation products for drought monitoring over mainland China. Four medium and long-term (19 a) SREs, i.e., the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) 3B42V7, the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement V06 post-real time Final Run precipitation products (IMF6), Global Rainfall Map in Near-real-time Gauge-calibrated Rainfall Product (GSMaP_Gauge_NRT) for product version 6 (GNRT6) and gauge-adjusted Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation V6 (GGA6) were considered. The accuracy of the four SREs was first evaluated against ground observation precipitation data. The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) based on four SREs was then compared at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Finally, four typical drought-influenced regions, i.e., the Northeast China Plain (NEC), Huang-Huai-Hai Plain (3HP), Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau (YGP) and South China (SC) were chosen as examples to analyze the ability of four SREs to capture the temporal and spatial changes of typical drought events. The results show that compared with GNRT6, the precipitation estimated by GGA6, IMF6 and 3B42V7 are in better agreement with the ground observation results. In the evaluation using SPEI, the four SREs performed well in eastern China but have large uncertainty in western China. GGA6 and IMF6 perform superior to GNRT6 and 3B42V7 in estimating SPEI and identifying typical drought events and behave almost the same. In general, GPM precipitation products have great potential to substitute TRMM precipitation products for drought monitoring. Both GGA6 and IMF6 are suitable for historical drought analysis. Due to the shorter time latency of data release and good performance in the eastern part of mainland China, GNRT6 and GGA6 might play a role for near real-time drought monitoring in the area. The results of this research will provide reference for the application of the SREs for drought monitoring in the GPM era.
Highlights
Drought is one of the natural disasters with the highest frequency and the most extensive impact, which has a huge impact on society, agriculture and economy [1,2,3,4].Affected by climate change and global warming, precipitation patterns and hydrological cycles have undergone drastic changes [5,6,7,8] and the frequency of droughts on a global scale has shown an increasing trend in recent decades [9,10,11]
The results show that compared with GNRT6, the precipitation estimated by Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation V6 (GGA6), IMF6 and 3B42V7 are in better agreement with the ground observation results
The best consistency is IMF6, followed by GGA6 and 3B42V7, which is consistent with the results shown in Table 3, except in Tibetan Plateau (TP)
Summary
Affected by climate change and global warming, precipitation patterns and hydrological cycles have undergone drastic changes [5,6,7,8] and the frequency of droughts on a global scale has shown an increasing trend in recent decades [9,10,11]. Previous studies usually divided droughts into four types: meteorological drought (insufficient precipitation), hydrological drought (insufficient surface or groundwater flow), agricultural drought (insufficient soil moisture) and socioeconomic drought Drought monitoring generally relies on data from surface meteorological observation sites. Due to the sparse and uneven spatial distribution of regional meteorological sites, it is difficult to meet the monitoring requirements [15]. With the rapid development of remote sensing technology, the emergence of satellite precipitation products has changed the temporal–spatial distribution and efficiency of precipitation mapping and drought monitoring [16,17,18,19]. Among the many satellite rainfall estimate (SRE) precipitation products, the TMPA (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)
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