Using High-Resolution Satellite Rainfall Products to Simulate a Major Flash Flood Event in Northern Italy
Open Access
- 1 February 2013
- journal article
- Published by American Meteorological Society in Journal of Hydrometeorology
- Vol. 14 (1), 171-185
- https://doi.org/10.1175/jhm-d-12-09.1
Abstract
Effective flash flood warning procedures are usually hampered by observational limitations of precipitation over mountainous basins where flash floods occur. Satellite rainfall estimates are available over complex terrain regions, offering a potentially viable solution to the observational coverage problem. However, satellite estimates of heavy rainfall rates are associated with significant biases and random errors that nonlinearly propagate in hydrologic modeling, imposing severe limitations on the use of these products in flood forecasting. In this study, the use of three quasi-global and near-real-time high-resolution satellite rainfall products for simulating flash floods over complex terrain basins are investigated. The study uses a major flash flood event that occurred during 29 August 2003 on a medium size mountainous basin (623 km2) in the eastern Italian Alps. Comparison of satellite rainfall with rainfall derived from gauge-calibrated weather radar estimates showed that although satellite products suffer from large biases they could represent the temporal variability of basin-averaged precipitation. Propagation of satellite rainfall through a distributed hydrologic model revealed that systematic error in rainfall was severely magnified when transformed to error in runoff under dry initial soil conditions. Simulation hydrographs became meaningful only after recalibrating the model for each satellite rainfall input separately. However, the unrealistic values of model parameters after recalibration show that this approach is erroneous and that model recalibration using satellite rainfall data should be treated with care. Overall, this study highlights the need for improvement of satellite rainfall retrieval algorithms in order to allow a more appropriate use of satellite rainfall products for flash flood applications.Keywords
This publication has 59 references indexed in Scilit:
- Operational early warning systems for water-related hazards in EuropeEnvironmental Science & Policy, 2012
- Evaluation of High-Resolution Satellite Rainfall Products through Streamflow Simulation in a Hydrological Modeling of a Small Mountainous Watershed in EthiopiaJournal of Hydrometeorology, 2012
- Assessment of satellite rainfall products for streamflow simulation in medium watersheds of the Ethiopian highlandsHydrology and Earth System Sciences, 2011
- Hydrologic evaluation of satellite precipitation products over a mid-size basinJournal of Hydrology, 2011
- Evaluation of satellite-retrieved extreme precipitation rates across the central United StatesJournal of Geophysical Research, 2011
- Uncertainty in the determination of soil hydraulic parameters and its influence on the performance of two hydrological models of different complexityHydrology and Earth System Sciences, 2010
- Benchmarking High-Resolution Global Satellite Rainfall Products to Radar and Rain-Gauge Rainfall EstimatesIEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 2009
- Evaluation Through Independent Measurements: Complex Terrain and Humid Tropical Region in EthiopiaPublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,2009
- Adequacy of satellite derived rainfall data for stream flow modelingNatural Hazards, 2007
- Impact of imperfect rainfall knowledge on the efficiency and the parameters of watershed modelsJournal of Hydrology, 2001