As the successor of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) has released a range of satellite-based precipitation products (SPPs). This study conducts a comparative analysis on the quality of the integrated multisatellite retrievals for GPM (IMERG) and global satellite mapping of precipitation (GSMaP) SPPs in the Yellow River source region (YRSR). This research includes the eight latest GPM-era SPPs, namely, IMERG “Early,” “Late,” and “Final” run SPPs (IMERG-E, IMERG-L, and IMERG-F) and GSMaP gauge-adjusted product (GSMaP-Gauge), microwave-infrared reanalyzed product (GSMaP-MVK), near-real-time product (GSMaP-NRT), near-real-time product with gauge-based adjustment (GSMaP-Gauge-NRT), and real-time product (GSMaP-NOW). In addition, the IMERG SPPs were compared with GSMaP SPPs at multiple spatiotemporal scales. Results indicate that among the three IMERG SPPs, IMERG-F exhibited the lowest systematic errors and the best quality, followed by IMERG-E and IMERG-L. IMERG-E and IMERG-L underestimated the occurrences of light-rain events but overestimated the moderate and heavy rain events. For GSMaP SPPs, GSMaP-Gauge presented the best performance in terms of various statistical metrics, followed by GSMaP-Gauge-NRT. GSMaP-MVK and GSMaP-NRT remarkably overestimated total precipitation, and GSMaP-NOW showed an evident underestimation. By comparing the performances of IMERG and GSMaP SPPs, GSMaP-Gauge-NRT provided the best precipitation estimates among all real-time and near-real-time SPPs. For post-real-time SPPs, GSMaP-Gauge presented the highest capability at the daily scale, and IMERG-F slightly outperformed the other SPPs at the monthly scale. This study is one of the earliest studies focusing on the quality of the latest IMERG and GSMaP SPPs. The findings of this study provide SPP developers with valuable information on the quality of the latest GPM-era SPPs in YRSR and help SPP researchers to refine the precipitation retrieving algorithms to improve the applicability of SPPs.

Comprehensively evaluating satellite precipitation products (SPPs) for hydrological simulations on watershed scales is necessary given that the quality of different SPPs varies remarkably in different regions. The Yellow River source region (YRSR) of China was chosen as the study area. Four SPPs were statistically evaluated, namely, the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) 3B42V7, Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR), Integrated Multisatellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement final run (IMERG-F), and gauge-corrected Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP-Gauge) products. Subsequently, the hydrological utility of these SPPs was assessed via the variable infiltration capacity hydrological model on a daily temporal scale. Results show that the four SPPs generally demonstrate similar spatial distribution pattern of precipitation to that of the ground observations. In the period of January 1998 to December 2016, 3B42V7 outperforms PERSIANN-CDR on basin scale. In the period of April 2014 to December 2016, GSMaP-Gauge demonstrates the highest precipitation monitoring capability and hydrological utility among all SPPs on grid and basin scales. In general, 3B42V7, IMERG-F, and GSMaP-Gauge show a satisfactory hydrological performance in streamflow simulations in YRSR. IMERG-F has an improved hydrological utility than 3B42V7 in YRSR.

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Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP) products, as important satellite-based precipitation products (SPPs) of Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, have provided hydrologists with critical precipitation data sources for hydrological applications in gauge-sparse or ungauged basins. This study statistically and hydrologically evaluated the latest GPM-era GSMaP SPPs in real-, near-real- and post-real-time versions at daily and hourly temporal scales in the sparsely gauged Yellow River source region (YRSR) in China. It includes the five latest GSMaP SPPs, namely, gauge-adjusted product (GSMaP-Gauge), microwave-infrared reanalyzed product (GSMaP-MVK), near-real-time product (GSMaP-NRT), near-real-time product with gauge-based adjustment (GSMaP-NRT-Gauge), and real-time product (GSMaP-Now). The statistical assessment showed that among all five GSMaP SPPs, GSMaP-Gauge presented the best overall performance in daily and hourly precipitation detections in YRSR, followed by GSMaP-Now. GSMaP-NRT-Gauge was ranked the third, whereas GSMaP-MVK and GSMaP-NRT had relatively inferior performance. Given that GSMaP-Gauge demonstrated the best quality among all evaluated GSMaP SPPs, GSMaP-Gauge displayed the best hydrological feasibility in daily streamflow simulation. Both GSMaP-MVK and GSMaP-NRT presented inferior hydrological capability, with a considerable overestimation of the total streamflow. In contrast, GSMaP-Now and GSMaP-NRT-Gauge displayed basically acceptable hydrological performance in daily discharge simulations. In terms of hourly flood simulations, the performance of GSMaP-Gauge slightly worsened but was comparable to the rain-gauge-based precipitation data set. Following GSMaP-Gauge, GSMaP-Now and GSMaP-NRT-Gauge obtained certain predictability of flood events. In general, GSMaP-MVK and GSMaP-NRT barely had hydrological utility for flood-event simulations.