Appropriate temporal resolution of precipitation data for discharge modelling in pre-alpine catchments

• Published in: Hydrological sciences journal Vol. 63; no. 1; pp. 1 - 16
• Main Authors: Sikorska, Anna E., Seibert, Jan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Taylor & Francis 02.01.2018; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Alpine environments; averaging length; Bayesian methods; bucket-type model; Catchment area; Catchment areas; Catchments; Computer applications; Computer simulation; Costs; Data; Data requirements; Hydrologic data; Hydrologic models; Hydrology; Modelling; Precipitation; Precipitation data; Radar; radar-based precipitation; Resolution; Runoff; Single-nucleotide polymorphism; station network precipitation; Temporal resolution; Time series; Uncertainty
• ISSN: 0262-6667; 2150-3435; 2150-3435
• DOI: 10.1080/02626667.2017.1410279

Precipitation time series with high temporal resolution are desired for hydrological modelling and flood studies. Yet the choice of an appropriate resolution is not straightforward because the use of too high a temporal resolution increases the data requirements, computational costs and, presumably, associated uncertainty, while performance improvement may be indiscernible. In this study, the effect of averaging hourly precipitation on model performance and associated uncertainty is investigated using two data sources: station network precipitation (SNP) and radar-based precipitation (RBP). From these datasets, time series of different temporal resolutions were generated, and runoff was simulated for 13 pre-alpine catchments with a bucket-type model. Our results revealed that different temporal resolutions were required for an acceptable model performance depending on the catchment size and data source. These were 1-12 h for small (16-59 km 2 ), 3-21 h for medium (60-200 km 2 ), and 24 h for large (200-939 km 2 ) catchments.