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Performance Evaluation of Six Gridded Precipitation Products throughout Iran Using Ground Observations over the Last Two Decades (2000–2020)

Ghorbanian, Arsalan LU ; Mohammadzadeh, Ali ; Jamali, Sadegh LU orcid and Duan, Zheng LU (2022) In Remote Sensing 14(15).
Abstract
Precipitation, as an important component of the Earth’s water cycle, plays a determinant role in various socio-economic practices. Consequently, having access to high-quality and reliable precipitation datasets is highly demanded. Although Gridded Precipitation Products (GPPs) have been widely employed in different applications, the lack of quantitative assessment of GPPs is a critical concern that should be addressed. This is because the inherent errors in GPPs would propagate into any models in which precipitation values are incorporated, introducing uncertainties into the final results. This paper aims to quantify the capability of six well-known GPPs (TMPA, CHIRPS, PERSIANN, GSMaP, IMERG, and ERA5) at multiple time scales (daily,... (More)
Precipitation, as an important component of the Earth’s water cycle, plays a determinant role in various socio-economic practices. Consequently, having access to high-quality and reliable precipitation datasets is highly demanded. Although Gridded Precipitation Products (GPPs) have been widely employed in different applications, the lack of quantitative assessment of GPPs is a critical concern that should be addressed. This is because the inherent errors in GPPs would propagate into any models in which precipitation values are incorporated, introducing uncertainties into the final results. This paper aims to quantify the capability of six well-known GPPs (TMPA, CHIRPS, PERSIANN, GSMaP, IMERG, and ERA5) at multiple time scales (daily, monthly, and yearly) using in situ observations (over 1.7 million) throughout Iran over the past two decades (2000–2020). Both continuous and categorical metrics were implemented for precipitation intensity and occurrence assessment based on the point-to-pixel comparison approach. Although all metrics did not support the superior performance of any specific GPP, taking all investigations into account, the findings suggested the better performance of the Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP) in estimating daily precipitation (CC = 0.599, RMSE = 3.48 mm/day, and CSI = 0.454). Based on the obtained continuous metrics, all the GPPs had better performances in dry months, while this did not hold for the categorical metrics. The validation at the station level was also carried out to present the spatial characteristics of errors throughout Iran, indicating higher overestimation/underestimation in regions with higher precipitation rates. The validation analysis over the last two decades illustrated that the GPPs had stable performances, and no improvement was seen, except for the GSMaP, in which its bias error was significantly reduced. The comparisons on monthly and yearly time scales suggested the higher accuracy of monthly and yearly averaged precipitation values than accumulated values. Our study provides valuable guidance to the selection and application of GPPs in Iran and also offers beneficial feedback for further improving these products. (Less)
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author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Remote Sensing
volume
14
issue
15
publisher
MDPI AG
external identifiers
  • scopus:85137118612
ISSN
2072-4292
DOI
10.3390/rs14153783
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
e650c244-c034-40de-a827-07d775d11703
date added to LUP
2022-08-09 16:33:33
date last changed
2023-05-15 12:51:32
@article{e650c244-c034-40de-a827-07d775d11703,
  abstract     = {{Precipitation, as an important component of the Earth’s water cycle, plays a determinant role in various socio-economic practices. Consequently, having access to high-quality and reliable precipitation datasets is highly demanded. Although Gridded Precipitation Products (GPPs) have been widely employed in different applications, the lack of quantitative assessment of GPPs is a critical concern that should be addressed. This is because the inherent errors in GPPs would propagate into any models in which precipitation values are incorporated, introducing uncertainties into the final results. This paper aims to quantify the capability of six well-known GPPs (TMPA, CHIRPS, PERSIANN, GSMaP, IMERG, and ERA5) at multiple time scales (daily, monthly, and yearly) using in situ observations (over 1.7 million) throughout Iran over the past two decades (2000–2020). Both continuous and categorical metrics were implemented for precipitation intensity and occurrence assessment based on the point-to-pixel comparison approach. Although all metrics did not support the superior performance of any specific GPP, taking all investigations into account, the findings suggested the better performance of the Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP) in estimating daily precipitation (CC = 0.599, RMSE = 3.48 mm/day, and CSI = 0.454). Based on the obtained continuous metrics, all the GPPs had better performances in dry months, while this did not hold for the categorical metrics. The validation at the station level was also carried out to present the spatial characteristics of errors throughout Iran, indicating higher overestimation/underestimation in regions with higher precipitation rates. The validation analysis over the last two decades illustrated that the GPPs had stable performances, and no improvement was seen, except for the GSMaP, in which its bias error was significantly reduced. The comparisons on monthly and yearly time scales suggested the higher accuracy of monthly and yearly averaged precipitation values than accumulated values. Our study provides valuable guidance to the selection and application of GPPs in Iran and also offers beneficial feedback for further improving these products.}},
  author       = {{Ghorbanian, Arsalan and Mohammadzadeh, Ali and Jamali, Sadegh and Duan, Zheng}},
  issn         = {{2072-4292}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{15}},
  publisher    = {{MDPI AG}},
  series       = {{Remote Sensing}},
  title        = {{Performance Evaluation of Six Gridded Precipitation Products throughout Iran Using Ground Observations over the Last Two Decades (2000–2020)}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs14153783}},
  doi          = {{10.3390/rs14153783}},
  volume       = {{14}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}