Comparative Evaluation of Rainfall Estimation methods in Lake Urmia Basin

Rainfall is one of the most important elements to determine the climate. Therefore, it is important to estimate its value accurately. The main purpose of this study is the evaluation of the TRMM (Tropical Rain Measurement Mission) 3B42 rainfall estimates, an exponential model and conceptual cloud model in Lake Urmia Basin. Therefore, this study focuses on the comparison of these methods to identify and select the most appropriate model for rainfall estimation in Lake Urmia Basin. The comparison are performed during the period 2007 to 2011 and the hourly rainfall, temperature, barometric pressure and dew point temperature, the three-hourly rainfall rate of TRMM 3B42-V6 at 0.25° resolution and thermal infrared images (TIR) of Meteosat 7 at six-hour intervals are used. The results indicated acceptable match of estimated rainfall with rain-gauge data. Comparison of three methods of rainfall estimation shows that exponential model has the determination coefficient (equal to 0.61). In addition to the high correlation, due to low levels of RMSE and MAE (respectively 1.58 and 1.01), has a good performance to estimate rainfall in this basin. Therefore, this model can introduced as the most appropriate model for estimating rainfall in Lake Urmia basin.