Abstract
The upper Río Chagres basin is a significant source of water for operation of the Panama Canal, producing a disproportionate share of the total runoff to the canal and also serving as the source of metropolitan drinking water for Panama City and Colon. To better understand the distribution of rainfall in the upper Río Chagres watershed, a study was performed using rainfall observations from both ground- and space-based platforms in a geospatial statistical framework. The ground-based data are from two rain gages with long-term records and five additional gages installed in 1998. Given the significant topographic relief, and the sparsely distributed network of rain gages, it is likely that the spatial variability of rainfall is not accurately measured by this rain gage network. This paper asks two questions: Does a significant relationship exist between precipitation and elevation? Can the fraction of total catchment's rainfall coverage for storm events be determined? Three methods are to answer these questions ussing TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission) data products. The TRMM satellite provides 4 km2 resolution PR (Precipitation Radar) and much coarser TMI (TRMM Microwave Imager) observations multiple times per day. The instruments observe swath widths of 220 and 758 km respectively. Full basin coverage of a spatially distributed rain field observation is possible at PR resolution, allowing for determination of the areal extent of rain. Moreover, TRMM data can be used to develop a statistical model of the spatial variability of rainfall in an effort to make basin average estimates. Thirdly, available TRMM rainfall estimates are used directly, in validation of rain gage data.
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Knox, R.G., Ogden, F.L., Dinku, T. (2005). Using TRMM to Explore Rainfall Variability in the Upper Río Chagres Catchment, Panama. In: Harmon, R.S. (eds) The Río Chagres, Panama. Water Science and Technology Library, vol 52. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3297-8_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3297-8_13
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-3298-1
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