Evaluation of satellite precipitation products using HEC HMS model

Accurate measurement of rainfall is vital to investigate the spatial and temporal patterns of rainfall at various scale for rainfall-runoff modeling. Nevertheless, accurate and consistent precipitation measurement are relatively sparse in many developing countries like Ethiopia. However, satellite precipitation product may serve as important inputs for modeling in the area with scarce field data for a wide range of hydrological applications. As the objective of this study is to evaluate the high resolution satellite rainfall products for hydrological simulation, the Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS_2) and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA_3B42v7) satellite rainfall products have been evaluated for stream flow simulation for a period of 16 years from (2000 - 2015), at daily temporal and 0.25º x 0.25º spatial resolution. The study area is located in Dabus watershed, Abbay basin, Ethiopia and a non-linear power law was applied for bias correction of satellite rainfall estimates for input in to HEC-HMS hydrologic model for runoff generation.