TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaluation of two satellite-based products against ground-based observation for drought analysis in the southern part of Iran
AU - Jafari, Seyedeh Mahboobeh
AU - Nikoo, Mohammad Reza
AU - Dehghani, Maryam
AU - Alijanian, Mohammadali
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2020/7/1
Y1 - 2020/7/1
N2 - Water stress or more specifically drought assessment plays a key role in water management, especially in extreme climate conditions. Basically, globally gridded satellite-based precipitation products are potential sources of data as alternatives for ground-based measurements. However, for a reliable application, they should be evaluated in different regions. In this paper, two satellite-based rainfall products, namely Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA)-Land and Global Land Data Assimilation System-2 (GLDAS-2), have been evaluated against ground-based observations in terms of precipitation and their application for drought analysis. At first, the coarse-resolution MERRA-Land is downscaled to the finer resolution of interest for better comparison. After comparison of these datasets against ground-based observations in terms of precipitation, it is concluded that MERRA-Land can better estimate precipitation. Then, the nonparametric SPIs at various timescales are derived to analyze how well MERRA-Land performs in drought monitoring. Different categorical and statistical error indices are used to assess the efficiency of MERRA-Land in capturing drought events. The results revealed that the downscaled MERRA-Land data can properly detect short-term and mid-term drought events known as agricultural and meteorological droughts throughout the study area, respectively. In addition, drought maps show that the majority of lands experience mid-term scale drought which are in agreement with ground-based observations. The methodology adopted in this study can be applied in areas lacking in rain-gauge stations which significantly extend current capabilities for drought monitoring and early warning systems.
AB - Water stress or more specifically drought assessment plays a key role in water management, especially in extreme climate conditions. Basically, globally gridded satellite-based precipitation products are potential sources of data as alternatives for ground-based measurements. However, for a reliable application, they should be evaluated in different regions. In this paper, two satellite-based rainfall products, namely Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA)-Land and Global Land Data Assimilation System-2 (GLDAS-2), have been evaluated against ground-based observations in terms of precipitation and their application for drought analysis. At first, the coarse-resolution MERRA-Land is downscaled to the finer resolution of interest for better comparison. After comparison of these datasets against ground-based observations in terms of precipitation, it is concluded that MERRA-Land can better estimate precipitation. Then, the nonparametric SPIs at various timescales are derived to analyze how well MERRA-Land performs in drought monitoring. Different categorical and statistical error indices are used to assess the efficiency of MERRA-Land in capturing drought events. The results revealed that the downscaled MERRA-Land data can properly detect short-term and mid-term drought events known as agricultural and meteorological droughts throughout the study area, respectively. In addition, drought maps show that the majority of lands experience mid-term scale drought which are in agreement with ground-based observations. The methodology adopted in this study can be applied in areas lacking in rain-gauge stations which significantly extend current capabilities for drought monitoring and early warning systems.
KW - Downscaling
KW - Drought
KW - GLDAS-2
KW - Iran
KW - MERRA-Land
KW - Satellite-based product
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U2 - 10.1007/s11069-020-03965-2
DO - 10.1007/s11069-020-03965-2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85084501682
SN - 0921-030X
VL - 102
SP - 1249
EP - 1267
JO - Natural Hazards
JF - Natural Hazards
IS - 3
ER -