Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2012FL301B

Development and Evaluation of Indices for Bias Assessment for Radar-based Rainfall Estimates

Institute: Florida
Year Established: 2012 Start Date: 2012-03-01 End Date: 2013-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $10,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $20,000

Principal Investigators: Ramesh Teegavarapu

Project Summary: The main objective of the proposed research study is to develop and evaluate several visual, qualitative and quantitative indices for evaluation of biases that would ultimately be used to improve the NEXRAD rainfall data. The proposed study would provide a complete assessment of biases at different spatial and temporal resolutions; identify any issues with the radar data and issue specific recommendations to SFWMD for improvement of the data in future. The indices will be evaluated at different levels and they include: space, event, time and point. Indices based on statistical methods will also be developed in this study. The study will use state-of-the-art qualitative and quantitative indices for evaluation of the radar data quality for the South Florida Water Management District (District) using a network of rain gages at different temporal resolutions. The proposed research is highly relevant and critical to a number of water resources management agencies (e.g. South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD)) that currently use NEXRAD based rainfall data for modeling and management of day-to-day operations of water resources systems. The products derived from the proposed study are expected to be tested for real-time use of NEXRAD-based rainfall data improvement by South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD).