Downscaling of Satellite Rainfall Data Using Remotely Sensed NDVI and Topographic Datasets

Abstract

Rainfall is a key factor in hydrological, meteorological, and water management applications in restricted regions or basins, but its measurement remains difficult in mountainous or otherwise remote places due to a lack of readily available rain gauges. While satellite rainfall data offer a better temporal resolution than other sources, the majority of this data are only available at a coarse geographic resolution, which distorts the true picture of precipitation. Thus, researchers at the University of Agriculture in Faisalabad used the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) monthly data and 1 km topography data for the whole Indus Basin from 2002 to 2011 to reduce the TRMM’s spatial resolution from 25 km to 1 km. An approach to downscaling based on a regression model with residual correction was established in this study. First, we resampled the NDVI and TRMM datasets to a 25 km resolution and established a regression model connecting the two datasets. Precipitation was forecasted at a distance of 25 km. The TRMM 3B43 product was then adjusted downward by the projected precipitation to achieve the residual value. The IDW method was used to reduce the resolution of the residual image from 25 km to 1 km. Rainfall was predicted using a regression model applied to NDVI at a 1 km spatial resolution. The final downscaled precipitation was created by combining the modeled precipitation at 1 km resolution with the residual image. The result was double-checked by the post-processing steps of validation and calibration.

Keywords

• downscaling
• rainfall
• NDVI
• TRMM
• spatial resolution
• meteorological observation