Assessment of different precipitation datasets and their impacts on the water balance of the Negro River basin

SummaryWith the objective of understanding the potential and limitations of available precipitation products for hydrological studies, this paper compares six daily and sub-daily precipitation datasets and their impacts on the water balance of the Negro River basin in the Amazon basin. The precipitation datasets contain gauge-based data [data derived from the Hybam Observatory Precipitation (HOP) dataset and provided by the Climate Prediction Center (CPC)], satellite-based data [the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) one-degree daily and TRMM Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) datasets] and model-based data [the NCEP-DOE AMIP-II re-analysis (NCEP-2) and 40-year ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) datasets]. Each dataset has a common set of meteorological forcing data which are used to run the MGB-IPH hydrological model for the period from January 1998 to August 2002.The average precipitation of all the datasets is 2542 mm for the Negro River basin, with a standard deviation of 317 mm. TMPA and NCEP-2 have the lowest (2216 mm/year) and the highest (3065 mm/year) precipitation rates, respectively. The HOP and CPC datasets agree best with observed discharge. GPCP gives the best results among the ungauged datasets, followed by ERA-40. TMPA and NCEP-2 are found to be the least accurate. TMPA can reproduce the water cycles reasonably well, but underestimates the precipitation fields and discharges over the basin, while NCEP-2 is unable to represent the rainfall quantity and cycles, and the water discharge. Results suggest that gauge-based data are still the most representative of the actual precipitation in the northern Amazon basin. However, some satellite and model-based can reproduce fairly well the water cycle at the basin scale and monthly time step.

► The spatio-temporal heterogeneities of six precipitation at the daily time step over the Negro River basin were compared.
► The effects of the datasets on the simulated water cycle of the Negro River basin were analyzed by using the MGB-IPH model.
► The rainfall datasets were compared at different temporal scales and also at the basin-wide and catchment scales.
► Mean rainfall over the basin varied substantially from a dataset to another but the evapotranspiration is in good agreement.
► This reveals an energy limited evapotranspiration in most parts of the basin.