Using Multiple Monthly Water Balance Models to Evaluate Gridded Precipitation Products over Peninsular Spain

Abstract

Abstract:The availability of precipitation data is the key driver in the application of hydrological models when simulating streamflow. Ground weather stations are regularly used to measure precipitation. However, spatial coverage is often limited in low-population areas and mountain areas. To overcome this limitation, gridded datasets from remote sensing have been widely used. This study evaluates four widely used global precipitation datasets (GPDs): The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B43, the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), the Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks (PERSIANN), and the Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP), against point gauge and gridded dataset observations using multiple monthly water balance models (MWBMs) in four different meso-scale basins that cover the main climatic zones of Peninsular Spain. The volumes of precipitation obtained from the GPDs tend to be smaller than those from the gauged data. Results underscore the superiority of the national gridded dataset, although the TRMM provides satisfactory results in simulating streamflow, reaching similar Nash-Sutcliffe values, between 0.70 and 0.95, and an average total volume error of 12% when using the GR2M model. The performance of GPDs highly depends on the climate, so that the more humid the watershed is, the better results can be achieved. The procedures used can be applied in regions with similar case studies to more accurately assess the resources within a system in which there is scarcity of recorded data available.

A Preliminary Assessment of the “Undercatching” and the Precipitation Pattern in an Alpine Basin

“…The Témez model is a simple lumped rainfall-runoff model that was successfully applied in Spanish basins (e.g., References [33,[54][55][56][57][58]). This model operates by performing water balances between the various processes that take place in the hydrological system, and it considers two storage tanks: the soil moisture (or unsaturated zone) and the aquifer (or saturated zone) [52,57,59]. Total runoff is the sum of a rapid response (surface runoff) and a slow response from groundwater storage (base flow) [33].…”

A Comparative Evaluation of the Performance of CHIRPS and CFSR Data for Different Climate Zones Using the SWAT Model

“…This grid has a spatial resolution of 5 km and provides daily rainfall from 1951 to March 2019. It has been produced based on the data from 3236 rainfall gauges, and according to previous studies [33], this grid provides satisfactory results in simulating streamflow. In the case of watersheds from Ethiopia, daily rainfall, and maximum/minimum temperature observations from 11 climatic stations in the Lake Tana and Beles basins are provided by the Ethiopian National Meteorological Agency (NMA) (www.ethiomet.gov.et/, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) from 1988 to 2005.…”

Editorial for Special Issue “Remote Sensing of Precipitation”

“…In the study by Senent-Aparicio et al [26], four widely used global precipitation datasets (GPDs) are evaluated: The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B43, the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), PERSIANN, and the Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) against point gauge and gridded dataset observations. Multiple monthly water balance models (MWBMs) are used in four different mesoscale basins that cover the main climatic zones of Peninsular Spain.…”