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Effect of bias correction of satellite-rainfall estimates on runoff simulations at the source of the Upper Blue Nile

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Title Effect of bias correction of satellite-rainfall estimates on runoff simulations at the source of the Upper Blue Nile
 
Creator Habib, E.
Haile, Alemseged Tamiru
Sazib, N.
Zhang, Y.
Rientjes, T.H.M.
 
Subject rain
runoff
satellites
river basins
hydrology
simulation models
calibration
catchment areas
stream flow
 
Description Results of numerous evaluation studies indicated that satellite-rainfall products are contaminated with significant systematic and random errors. Therefore, such products may require refinement and correction before being used for hydrologic applications. In the present study, we explore a rainfall-runoff modeling application using the Climate Prediction Center-MORPHing (CMORPH) satellite rainfall product. The study area is the Gilgel Abbay catchment situated at the source basin of the Upper Blue Nile basin in Ethiopia, Eastern Africa. Rain gauge networks in such area are typically sparse. We examine different bias correction schemes applied locally to the CMORPH product. These schemes vary in the degree to which spatial and temporal variability in the CMORPH bias fields are accounted for. Three schemes are tested: space and time-invariant, time-variant and spatially invariant, and space and time variant. Bias-corrected CMORPH products were used to calibrate and drive the Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning (HBV) rainfall-runoff model. Applying the space and time-fixed bias correction scheme resulted in slight improvement of the CMORPH-driven runoff simulations, but in some instances caused deterioration. Accounting for temporal variation in the bias reduced the rainfall bias by up to 50%. Additional improvements were observed when both the spatial and temporal variability in the bias was accounted for. The rainfall bias was found to have a pronounced effect on model calibration. The calibrated model parameters changed significantly when using rainfall input from gauges alone, uncorrected, and bias-corrected CMORPH estimates. Changes of up to 81% were obtained for model parameters controlling the stream flow volume.
 
Date 2014
2016-11-01T13:39:36Z
2016-11-01T13:39:36Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Habib, E.; Haile, Alemseged Tamiru; Sazib, N.; Zhang, Y.; Rientjes, T. 2014. Effect of bias correction of satellite-rainfall estimates on runoff simulations at the source of the Upper Blue Nile. Remote Sensing, 6(7):6688-6708. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs6076688
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/77506
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/6/7/6688/pdf
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs6076688
 
Language en
 
Rights CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0
Open Access