SCIENCE@home

Comparison of Satellite Rainfall Estimates and Rain Gauge Measurements in Italy, and Impact on Landslide Modeling

M. Rossi,D. Kirschbaum,D. Valigi,A. Mondini,F. Guzzetti

Published 2017 in Climate

ABSTRACT

Landslides can be triggered by intense or prolonged rainfall. Rain gauge measurements are commonly used to predict landslides even if satellite rainfall estimates are available. Recent research focuses on the comparison of satellite estimates and gauge measurements. The rain gauge data from the Italian network (collected in the system database “Verifica Rischio Frana”, VRF) are compared with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) products. For the purpose, we couple point gauge and satellite rainfall estimates at individual grid cells, evaluating the correlation between gauge and satellite data in different morpho-climatological conditions. We then analyze the statistical distributions of both rainfall data types and the rainfall events derived from them. Results show that satellite data underestimates ground data, with the largest differences in mountainous areas. Power-law models, are more appropriate to correlate gauge and satellite data. The gauge and satellite-based products exhibit different statistical distributions and the rainfall events derived from them differ. In conclusion, satellite rainfall cannot be directly compared with ground data, requiring local investigation to account for specific morpho-climatological settings. Results suggest that satellite data can be used for forecasting landslides, only performing a local scaling between satellite and ground data.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2017

  • Venue

    Climate

  • Publication date

    2017-12-03

  • Fields of study

    Geology, Economics, Environmental Science

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.3390/CLI5040090
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar

CITATION MAP

EXTRACTION MAP

CLAIMS

  • No claims are published for this paper.

CONCEPTS

  • No concepts are published for this paper.

REFERENCES

Showing 1-61 of 61 references · Page 1 of 1

CITED BY

Showing 1-37 of 37 citing papers · Page 1 of 1