The feasibility of using TRMM satellite data for missing terrestrial stations in Iraq for mapping the rainfall contour lines

Abstract

Rainfall data are considered an important and critical element of many environmental and hydrological studies such as drought, desertification, climate change and other strategic studies. These studies are mainly based on the rainfall data archive for previous years. During the last two decades, a large number of meteorological stations have been destroyed as a result of wars and internal conflicts, reducing the stations to 16 after the number was more than 30 stations, resulting in a significant lack of meteorological data archive. In addition to the spatial distribution of these stations does not adequately cover Iraq. The research aim to evaluate the feasibility of the TRMM satellite data (3B42 V7 product) to complete the rainfall data archive of the missing terrestrial stations. Several rainfall contour maps of the season 2017-2018 were drawn from data of 16 terrestrial stations, 16 and 30 stations derived from TRMM satellite data, and a hybrid map derived from the TRMM satellite data and available terrestrial stations, afterwards there were compared with the general rainfall contour map. The correlation was made between the satellite data and terrestrial stations data, and the results showed a positive correlation with a strong correlation coefficient reach to 0.91. The results showed that TRMM data could be used as a good alternative to terrestrial station data for its accuracy, wide coverage and ease of availability.