Articles | Volume 18, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-5077-2014
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-5077-2014
Research article
 | 
11 Dec 2014
Research article |  | 11 Dec 2014

Satellite-driven downscaling of global reanalysis precipitation products for hydrological applications

H. Seyyedi, E. N. Anagnostou, E. Beighley, and J. McCollum

Abstract. Deriving flood hazard maps for ungauged basins typically requires simulating a long record of annual maximum discharges. To improve this approach, precipitation from global reanalysis systems must be downscaled to a spatial and temporal resolution applicable for flood modeling. This study evaluates such downscaling and error correction approaches for improving hydrologic applications using a combination of NASA's Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) precipitation data set and a higher resolution multi-satellite precipitation product (TRMM). The study focuses on 437 flood-inducing storm events that occurred over a period of ten years (2002–2011) in the Susquehanna River basin located in the northeastern United States. A validation strategy was devised for assessing error metrics in rainfall and simulated runoff as function of basin area, storm severity, and season. The WSR-88D gauge-adjusted radar-rainfall (stage IV) product was used as the reference rainfall data set, while runoff simulations forced with the stage IV precipitation data set were considered as the runoff reference. Results show that the generated rainfall ensembles from the downscaled reanalysis product encapsulate the reference rainfall. The statistical analysis consists of frequency and quantile plots plus mean relative error and root-mean-square error statistics. The results demonstrated improvements in the precipitation and runoff simulation error statistics of the satellite-driven downscaled reanalysis data set compared to the original reanalysis precipitation product. Results vary by season and less by basin scale. In the fall season specifically, the downscaled product has 3 times lower mean relative error than the original product; this ratio increases to 4 times for the simulated runoff values. The proposed downscaling scheme is modular in design and can be applied on any gridded satellite and reanalysis data set.

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Short summary
The paper presents a methodology for using global precipitation products from satellite remote sensing to error-correct and downscale global atmospheric reanalysis precipitation data sets. It is shown that streamflow simulations from the satellite-adjusted precipitation reanalysis give similar statistics to the ones derived by high-resolution ground-based radar rainfall data sets. This approach can be applied globally to derive improved flood frequency maps over data-poor areas.