Gauging the ungauged: estimating rainfall in a West African urbanized river basin using ground-based and spaceborne sensors

Linda Bogerd*, Rose B. Pinto, Hidde Leijnse, Jan Fokke Meirink, Tim H.M. van Emmerik, Remko Uijlenhoet

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalComment/Letter to the editorScientificpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)
39 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Accurate precipitation observations are crucial for hydrological forecasts, notably over rapidly responding urban areas. This study evaluated the accuracy of three gridded spaceborne rainfall products (Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG), Meteosat Second Generation Visible (MSG-VIS), and MSG-Infrared (MSG-IR)) and the non-governmental Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO) gauges across the Odaw catchment (Accra, Ghana) from January 2020-July 2022. IMERG is hardly able to capture the strong spatial variability of rainfall required for flood forecasting, but agrees in annual sums with TAHMO and MSG-IR. MSG-IR has difficulties during the wet season. MSG-VIS, only available during daylight, shows limited accuracy and gives high estimates while other products do not detect rain. TAHMO gauges effectively record high-intensity events and their strong spatial variability, although some (daily) accumulations are doubtful and data gaps exist due to technical issues. These findings assist hydrological modelers in selecting appropriate datasets at suitable spatiotemporal resolutions for their research.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)259-273
Number of pages15
JournalHydrological Sciences Journal
Volume69
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Keywords

  • Accra
  • floods
  • precipitation
  • raingauges
  • satellite measurements

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