TY - JOUR
T1 - Statistical and hydrological evaluation of remotely sensed rainfall products in the Upper Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia
AU - Alemu, Melkamu Meseret
AU - Zaitchik, Benjamin F.
AU - Enku, Temesgen
AU - Worqlul, Abeyou W.
AU - Yimer, Esifanos Addisu
AU - van Griensven, Ann
N1 - Funding Information:
This research project was partially supported by Bahir Dar University.
Funding Information:
The authors thank the Ethiopian Meteorological Institute and the Ministry of Water and Energy of Ethiopia for rainfall and streamflow data. The authors also acknowledge the use of the CHIRPS from the Climate Hazards Group (https://www.chc.ucsb.edu/data/chirps), IMERG (https://gpm.nasa.gov/data/imerg), PERSIANN-CDR (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/precipitation-persiann), and GLEAM (https://www.gleam.eu) datasets.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.
PY - 2025/4
Y1 - 2025/4
N2 - Satellite-based rainfall products (SRPs) have a wide range of applications, but their accuracy and reliability need to be assessed. This study evaluated the performance of three SRPs: Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS), the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrieval for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG), and Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks-Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR) over the Upper Blue Nile Basin (UBNB) on daily and monthly time scales by employing three distinct approaches. First, the evaluation was carried out by comparing the SRPs with rainfall measurements obtained from 25 rainfall gauging stations using statistical indicators. Following this, the Triple Collocation (TC) was applied. The study continued to investigate the hydrological utility of the SRPs at three selected watersheds in the basin using the GR4J (Génie Rural à 4 paramètres Journalier) hydrological model. Results indicated a statistically significant strong monthly correlation between SRPs and gauge observations, but a weak daily correlation. IMERG showed higher performance on a daily scale, while CHIRPS outperformed on a monthly scale based on statistical metrics. TC-based results also revealed the superior performance of IMERG on the daily scale, with SRPs’ performance declining from west to east and exhibiting higher performance at lower elevations. GR4J modeling results indicated SRPs’ potential for hydrological modeling applications, but challenges in simulating the high flow conditions were noted. Overall, the study underscores the critical role of SRPs in enhancing hydrological modeling, streamflow simulations, and water resource management for policy decision-making, especially in data-scarce regions. However, further research is needed to enhance the reliability and applicability of SRPs for more accurate generalization.
AB - Satellite-based rainfall products (SRPs) have a wide range of applications, but their accuracy and reliability need to be assessed. This study evaluated the performance of three SRPs: Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS), the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrieval for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG), and Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks-Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR) over the Upper Blue Nile Basin (UBNB) on daily and monthly time scales by employing three distinct approaches. First, the evaluation was carried out by comparing the SRPs with rainfall measurements obtained from 25 rainfall gauging stations using statistical indicators. Following this, the Triple Collocation (TC) was applied. The study continued to investigate the hydrological utility of the SRPs at three selected watersheds in the basin using the GR4J (Génie Rural à 4 paramètres Journalier) hydrological model. Results indicated a statistically significant strong monthly correlation between SRPs and gauge observations, but a weak daily correlation. IMERG showed higher performance on a daily scale, while CHIRPS outperformed on a monthly scale based on statistical metrics. TC-based results also revealed the superior performance of IMERG on the daily scale, with SRPs’ performance declining from west to east and exhibiting higher performance at lower elevations. GR4J modeling results indicated SRPs’ potential for hydrological modeling applications, but challenges in simulating the high flow conditions were noted. Overall, the study underscores the critical role of SRPs in enhancing hydrological modeling, streamflow simulations, and water resource management for policy decision-making, especially in data-scarce regions. However, further research is needed to enhance the reliability and applicability of SRPs for more accurate generalization.
KW - CHIRPS
KW - Hydrological modeling
KW - IMERG
KW - PERSIANN-CDR
KW - Triple collocation
KW - Upper Blue Nile basin
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85218206653&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s40808-025-02299-x
DO - 10.1007/s40808-025-02299-x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85218206653
SN - 2363-6203
VL - 11
SP - 1
EP - 17
JO - Modeling Earth Systems and Environment
JF - Modeling Earth Systems and Environment
IS - 2
M1 - 99
ER -