A comparison between high-resolution satellite precipitation estimates and gauge measured data: case study of Gorganrood basin, Iran

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the accuracy of the precipitation data gathered from satellites including PERSIANN, TRMM-3B42V7, TRMM-3B42RTV7, and CMORPH, over Gorganrood basin, Iran. The data collected from these satellites (2003–2007) were then compared with precipitation gauge observations at six stations, namely, Tamar, Ramiyan, Bahlakeh-Dashli, Sadegorgan, Fazel-Abad, and Ghaffar-Haji. To compare these two groups, mean absolute error (MAE), bias, root mean square error (RMSE), and Pearson correlation coefficient criteria were calculated on daily, monthly, and seasonal basis. Furthermore, probability of detection (POD), false alarm ratio (FAR), and critical success index (CSI) were calculated for these datasets. Results indicate that, on a monthly scale, the highest correlation between observed and satellite-gathered data calculated is 0.404 for TRMM-3B42 at Bahlakeh-Dashli station. At a seasonal scale, the highest correlation is calculated for winter data and using PERSIANN data, while for the other seasons, TRMM-3B42 data showed the best correlation with observed data. The high values of RMSE and MAE for winter data showed that the satellites provided poor estimations at this season. The best and the worst values of RMSE for studied satellites belonged to Sadegorgan and Ramiyan stations, respectively. Furthermore, the PERSIANN gains a better CSI and POD while TRMM-3B42V7 showed a better FAR.