Evaluating Suitability of Multiple Precipitation Products for the Lancang River Basin

Abstract

Global reanalysis precipitation products could provide valuable meteorological information for flow forecasting in poorly gauged areas, helping to overcome a long-standing challenge in the field. But not all data sources are suitable for all regions or perform the same way in hydrological modeling, so it is essential to test the suitability of precipitation products before applying them. In this study, five widely used global high-resolution precipitation products-Asian Precipitation Highly Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of Water Resources (APHRODITE), National Centers for Environmental Prediction Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (NCEP-CFSR), Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station Data (CHIRPS), China Gauge-based Daily Precipitation Analysis developed by China Meteorological Administration (CMA) and Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project based on the NASA Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (AgMERRA)-were evaluated using statistical methods and a hydrological approach for their suitability for the Lancang River Basin. The results indicated that APHRODITE, CMA, AgMERRA and CHIRPS were more accurate precipitation indicators than NCEP-CFSR in terms of the multiyear average and seasonal spatial distribution pattern, all of the CHIRPS, AgMERRA and APHRODITE perform better than CMA and NCEP-CFSR at the small, medium and high precipitation intensities ranges in subbasin11 and sunbabsin46. All five products performed better in subbasin46 (a low-altitude region) than in subbasin11 (a high-altitude region) on the daily and monthly scales. In addition to NCEP-CFSR, the other four products all presented encouraging potential for streamflow simulation at daily (Yunjinghong) and monthly (Yunjinghong, Jiuzhou and Gajiu) scale. Hydrological simulations forced with APHRODITE were the best of the five for the Yunjinghong station in capturing daily and monthly measured streamflow. Except for NCEP-CFSR, all products were very good for hydrological simulations for the Gajiu and Jiuzhou stations.

Development of Asia Pacific Weather Statistics (APWS) dataset for use in Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) simulation

“…5, illustrate that APHRODITE is more accurate, and thus more suitable, than CFSR for hydro-meteorological applications in the study basins. Similar outperformance of APHRODITE over CFSR is reported for other areas in the Asia Pacific region, e.g., Mekong (Lauri et al, 2014;Thom and Khoi, 2017), middle east (Eini et al, 2019;Sidike et al, 2016) and China (Tang et al, 2019) and many others. 285…”

“…al., 2019), Langcang basin in China (Tang et al, 2019) and many others, compared to other rainfall products. The resolution of CFSR (0.38 o ) dataset could be another reason for its inferior performance in the topographically complex Asia Pacific 65 region, as for each sub-basin, SWAT assigns the weather statistics from a nearby location defined within the dataset.…”

“…APHRODITE has been used in the Asia Pacific region as baseline rainfall series for drought analysis (Um et al, 2017;Sohn et al, 2012), climate model 80 assessments (Khan et al, 2018;Cruz and Sasaki, 2017), climate change impact assessments (Apurv et al, 2015;Kulkarni et al, 2013) and hydrological model setup (Lauri et al, 2014;Panday et al, 2014). Moreover, APHRODITE's relative superiority over other rainfall products, including CFSR, is well-established in several countries in the Asia Pacific region, including Saudi Arabia (El Kenawy and McCabe, 2016), Greater Mekong (Chen et al, 2017), Bhutan (Awange and Forootan, 2016), China (Yang et al, 2014;Tang et al, 2019) and many others. The better performance of APHRODITE over CFSR and other products 85 in the region suggests that rainfall statistics derived from APHRODITE data could be more precise, and hence, more effective in generating relatively accurate synthetic weather data and better flow simulations using SWAT in rainfall dominant basins of Asia.…”

Spatial Variabilities of Runoff Erosion and Different Underlying Surfaces in the Xihe River Basin

“…In the large-scale watershed, Ajaaj et al [59] used SWAT model evaluated the accuracy of four widely used satellite and gauged-based precipitation products in the poorly gauged Tigris River basin, Middle East. Tang et al [60] used the SWAT model to evaluate the suitability of five widely used global high-resolution precipitation products in Lancang river basin, China. In the middle-scale watershed, Lyu et al [61] simulated the hydrological cycle and analyzed the influence of climate variability and land use change on green water resources from 1995 to 2015 in the Xihe River Basin, China.…”

Comparative Analysis of the Performance of Satellite‐Based Rainfall Products Over Various Topographical Unities in Central East Africa: Case of Burundi

“…Numerous studies have been conducted to examine the role of satellite‐based rainfall estimate products, regional climate models, and reanalysis data to quantify rainfall and establish reliable forecast systems (Ayehu et al, ; Ayugi et al, ; Dinku et al, ; Ongoma et al, ). Moreover, different data sets have been analyzed to check their performance and their response when applied on hydrological models, environmental assessment, or extreme events analysis (Caracciolo et al, ; Deng et al, ; Gebrechorkos et al, ; Kim et al, ; Pérez‐Zanón et al, ; Tang et al, ; Wang et al, ; Zhang et al, ).…”