Journal of Water Resources Research 水资源研究, 2016, 5(5), 434-445
Published Online October 2016 in Hans. /journal/jwrr
/10.12677/jwrr.2016.55050
Evaluation of Accuracy and Streamflow
Simulation of TRMM Satellite
Precipitation Data
Jialing Wang1,2, Hua Chen1,2, Chongyu Xu1,2,3, Xiangquan Li1,2, Qiang Zeng1,2
1
State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan Hubei
2
Hubei Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center for Water Resources Security, Wuhan University, Wuhan Hubei
3
Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo Norway
st th th
Received: Sep. 1 , 2016; accepted: Sep. 24 , 2016; published: Sep. 27 , 2016
Copyright © 2016 by authors and Hans Publishers Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY).
/licenses/by/4.0/
Open Access
Abstract
The accuracy of satellite precipitation estimates has become a focus of attention, having a promising
prospect in the hydrological researches and applications. In this study, the new precipitation product
(3B42 V7) of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) was evaluated via comparison with the rain
gauge precipitation data in Xiangjiang River Basin. The evaluations were conducted at different spatial
and temporal scales. Simultaneously, the laws of data accuracy under different periods, rainfall intensity
levels, and elevations were analyzed. These two precipitation data were then adopted to drive the Xinan-
jiang Model to perform streamflow simulation. The results showed that TRMM satellite precipitation da-
ta had a good correlation with rain gauge precipitation data; it had better accuracy under monthly scale
than daily scale and showed better performance at watershed scale than it did at grid scale. The area