Spatial–temporal disaggregation of daily rainfall from a generalized linear model

SummaryThis paper describes a methodology for continuous simulation of spatially-distributed hourly rainfall, based on observed data from a daily raingauge network. Generalized linear models (GLMs), which can represent the spatial and temporal non-stationarities of multi-site daily rainfall (Chandler, R.E., Wheater, H.S., 2002. Analysis of rainfall variability using generalised linear models: a case study from the west of Ireland. Water Resources Research, 38 (10), 1192. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2001WR000906), are combined with a single-site disaggregation model based on Poisson cluster processes (Koutsoyiannis, D., Onof, C., 2001. Rainfall disaggregation using adjusting procedures on a Poisson cluster model. Journal of Hydrology 246, 109–122). The resulting sub-daily temporal profile is then applied linearly to all sites over the catchment to reproduce the spatially-varying daily totals. The method is tested for the River Lee catchment, UK, a tributary of the Thames covering an area of 1400 km2. Twenty simulations of 12 years of hourly rainfall are generated at 20 sites and compared with the historical series. The proposed model preserves most standard statistics but has some limitations in the representation of extreme rainfall and the correlation structure. The method can be extended to sites within the modelled region not used in the model calibration.