Spatial Patterns and Temporal Trends of Global Floods during the TRMM Era (1998-2008)
Abstract
Changes in the patterns, means, and extremes of precipitation affect the spatiotemporal distribution and magnitude of floods. Availability of satellite precipitation products from TRMM-based Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) since 1998 motivated this study to assess the distribution of floods on a global basis. First, a digitized Global Flood Inventory (GFI) for the period of 1998-2008 has been developed from multiple sources. The GFI was used to evaluate retrospective simulations from NASA’s Global Flood Modeling (GFM) system, driven by TMPA and other meteorological forcing data. The evaluation is based on four different strategies: a) rainfall threshold, b) excess rainfall generated from a hydrological model, c) routed excess rainfall, and d) grid-based return period analysis of routed excess rainfall from c. Analysis of the results shows that the strategy based on the return periods of routed excess rainfall in d has the highest probability of detection while maintaining relatively low false alarm rates. Finally, both the observed GFI and simulated GFM results were used to map spatial patterns and temporal trends of global floods over the past decade.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009AGUFM.H14E..04W
- Keywords:
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- 1821 HYDROLOGY / Floods