Evaluation of Satellite Precipitation Products for Hydrological Modeling in the Brazilian Cerrado Biome

Jhones Da S Amorim,Marcelo R Viola,Carlos R De Mello,Vinicius A De Oliveira,Rubens Junqueira

doi:10.3390/w12092571

Abstract

This study investigates the applicability of Satellite Precipitation Products (SPPs) in streamflow simulations performed in the Brazilian Cerrado biome, which is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. Local data from ground observations were used as a reference for evaluating the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) and Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG). The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used to simulate the streamflow in a subbasin of the Tocantins river basin. Statistical precision metrics showed that both SPPs presented a satisfactory performance for precipitation monitoring on a monthly scale, in which IMERG performed better than TMPA. The Nash–Sutcliff coefficient and Kling–Gupta efficiency obtained for both calibration and validation period were greater than 0.82 and 0.79, respectively, demonstrating that both SPPs were able to simulate the hydrological regime adequately. However, the bias indicated that the SPPs overestimated the observed streamflow. The r-factor and p-factor values showed that both TMPA and IMERG presented low uncertainty in streamflow simulations. SPPs offer a great alternative for monitoring the precipitation and hydrological studies in the Brazilian Cerrado biome, and presented better simulation results than rain gauges.

Highlights

Precipitation is one of the main components of the hydrological cycle due to the significant role that it plays in various socio-economic activities
The results showed that the simulation using TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) presented more reliable results than other precipitation inputs, whereas the validation of the simulation using rain gauges presented the highest uncertainty among the 2020, inputs, in which the p-factor was slightly lower than 0.7
The low density of rain gauges used for validating Satellite Precipitation Products (SPPs) may have been one of the reasons for some errors obtained in the study area

Summary

Introduction

Precipitation is one of the main components of the hydrological cycle due to the significant role that it plays in various socio-economic activities. It involves complex physical processes and displays high spatial and temporal variability [1,2,3]. In several locations around the world, the monitoring network of precipitation has limitations related to density, frequency of observations, and infrastructure [2]. The rain gauges provide data for calibration and validation for other precipitation data sources [5]. Rain gauge measurements have limitations, such as spatial coverage and point measurement, mainly in tropical developing regions, where high variability makes precipitation one of the most difficult weather variables for estimating [1]. Brazil has an average density of one rain gauge per 720 km2 [7], which is below that recommended by the World Meteorological

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion