Hydro-Meteorological Assessment of Three GPM Satellite Precipitation Products in the Kelantan River Basin, Malaysia

Abstract

Abstract:The rapid development of Satellite Precipitation Products (SPPs) has heightened the need for a hydro-meteorological assessment of the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) products in different climate and geographical regions. Reliability of the IMERG early (IMERG_E), late (IMERG_L) and final (IMERG_F) run products in precipitation estimations was evaluated over the Kelantan River Basin, Malaysia from 12 March 2014 to 31 December 2016. The three IMERG products were then incorporated into a calibrated Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to assess their reliability in streamflow simulations. Overall, monthly precipitation variability is well captured by the three SPPs. The IMERG_F exhibited a smaller systematic bias (RB = 7.14%) compared to the IMERG_E (RB = −10.42%) and IMERG_L (RB = −17.92%) in daily precipitation measurement. All the three SPPs (NSE = 0.66~0.71 and R 2 = 0.73~0.75) performed comparably well as precipitation gauges (NSE = 0.74 and R 2 = 0.79) in the daily streamflow simulation. However, the IMERG_E and IMERG_L showed a significant underestimation of daily streamflow by 27.6% and 36.3%, respectively. The IMERG_E and IMERG_F performed satisfactory in streamflow simulation during the 2014-2015 flood period, with NSE and R 2 values of 0.5~0.51 and 0.62~0.65, respectively. With a better peak flow capture ability, the IMERG_F outperformed the near real-time products in cumulative streamflow measurement. The study has also shown that the point-to-pixel or pixel-to-pixel comparison schemes gave comparable conclusions. Future work should focus on the development of a standardized GPM hydro-meteorological assessment framework, so that a fair comparison among IMERG validation studies can be conducted.

Applications of TRMM- and GPM-Era Multiple-Satellite Precipitation Products for Flood Simulations at Sub-Daily Scales in a Sparsely Gauged Watershed in Myanmar

“…In comparison with Yuan et al [47], our study demonstrates that the updated precipitation retrieval algorithms (V05B) effectively enhanced the hydrological utility of IMERG-F in the study area. Moreover, our study generally agrees with the findings of several previous studies [24,25,50] that IMERG-F with the rain-gauge-adjustment has better hydrological performance than IMERG-E and IMERG-L. In the Mishui basin of China, Jiang et al [25] found that IMERG-E presents better daily hydrological performance than 3B42RT, even comparable to 3B42V7.…”

“…Many previous studies [24,25,50,[72][73][74] found that post-real-time SPPs generally present higher quality than their near-real-time versions in many regions of the world because of gauge-based adjustment. In this study, IMERG-F evidently outperforms the near-real-time SPPs (IMERG-E and IMERG-L) in the Chindwin River basin.…”

“…However, most relevant studies [24,25,36,45,47,48,50] focused on assessing the hydrological utility of IMERG at daily or monthly time scales, while evaluations at sub-daily temporal scales have seldom been reported [44,46,49]. Furthermore, studies on the hydrological performance of all the "Early", "Late", and "Final" runs of IMERG are rare [24,25,50]. Focusing on the hydrological utilities of IMERG in near-and post-real-time versions at sub-daily temporal scales is necessary, considering that near-real-time SPPs in fine spatiotemporal resolutions and short latencies are expected to be reliable precipitation data sources for flood forecasting and monitoring.…”

Application of Satellite Rainfall Products for Flood Inundation Modelling in Kelantan River Basin, Malaysia

“…According to [77], the underestimation in discharge simulation due to the underestimated rainfall estimates. Similar findings are also reported in [17,73,78,79]. Therefore, we could conclude that GSMaP-NRT has a positive bias in this extreme event.…”

“…The authors of [73] conducted a hydro-meteorological evaluation over Kelantan river basin for a period between 2014 and 2016 using three GPM (IMERG-E, -L, -F) products using the SWAT model. The study simulated the flood event discharge in December 2014 and discovered that IMERG-E and IMERG-L data had produced good streamflow estimates with NSE and r values of 0.43-0.51 and 0.61-0.62, respectively.…”