Satellite precipitation products and hydrologic applications

Abstract

This study examined the application of satellite precipitation in the modelling of 10 watersheds in diverse locations around the planet (Brazil, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand). Significantly, modelled streamflow based on local rain-gauge data and the production version of TRMM 3B42 yielded acceptable results in most of the examined watersheds. An important finding was that the newest version of TRMM 3B42 (V7) can potentially support modelling in watersheds that are significantly smaller than 10,000 km². Conversely, real-time satellite products that have more limited (or no) bias corrections (such as CMORPH) produced model results that were unacceptable in most basins.

Keywords:

• TRMM
• CMORPH
• SWAT
• New Zealand
• Australia
• South Korea
• Brazil

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of the NASA Precipitation Measurement Missions Science Program (09-PRECIP09-28). The assistance of research assistants Ruben Garza and Arturo Diaz is greatly appreciated. The data used in this study were acquired using Giovanni (the GES-DISC Interactive Online Visualization and Analysis Infrastructure), a product of NASA’s Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Services Center.

Notes

^1. The Rio Groaíras basin in Brazil represents a tropical wet and dry climatic regime (savannah; Aw) in the Koppen climate-classification system with the driest month having less than 60 mm of precipitation. Scott Creek, in South Australia, is in a zone with a dry-summer subtropical climate where the driest month has less than 30 mm of precipitation (Mediterranean; Cbs). The Guem River basin in South Korea represents a dry winter, with the driest winter month with less than 30 mm, and a hot-summer continental regime (Dwa); and the watersheds examined on the North Island of New Zealand reflect a maritime temperate climate (Cfb).