Developing a high-resolution gridded rainfall product for Bangladesh during 1901-2018

Ashraf Dewan; Shamsuddin Shahid; Md Hanif Bhuian; Shaikh M Jobayed Hossain; Mohamed Salem Nashwan; Eun-Sung Chung; Quazi K Hassan; Md Asaduzzaman

doi:10.1038/s41597-022-01568-z

Developing a high-resolution gridded rainfall product for Bangladesh during 1901-2018

Sci Data. 2022 Aug 3;9(1):471. doi: 10.1038/s41597-022-01568-z.

Authors

Ashraf Dewan¹, Shamsuddin Shahid², Md Hanif Bhuian³, Shaikh M Jobayed Hossain⁴, Mohamed Salem Nashwan⁵, Eun-Sung Chung⁶, Quazi K Hassan⁷, Md Asaduzzaman⁸

Affiliations

¹ Spatial Sciences discipline, Curtin University, Bentley 6102, Perth, Western Australia.
² School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310, Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
³ Department of Geography and Environment, Jagannath University, Dhaka, 1100, Bangladesh.
⁴ Meiji University, Chiyoda city, Tokyo, 101-8301, Japan.
⁵ Construction and Building Engineering Department, College of Engineering and Technology, Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT), 2033, Cairo, Egypt.
⁶ Department of Civil Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Nowon-gu, 01811, Seoul, South Korea. eschung@seoultech.ac.kr.
⁷ Department of Geomatics Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Canada.
⁸ Department of Engineering, School of Digital, Technologies and Arts, Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, UK.

Abstract

A high-resolution (1 km × 1 km) monthly gridded rainfall data product during 1901-2018, named Bangladesh Gridded Rainfall (BDGR), was developed in this study. In-situ rainfall observations retrieved from a number of sources, including national organizations and undigitized data from the colonial era, were used. Leave-one-out cross-validation was used to assess product's ability to capture spatial and temporal variability. The results revealed spatial variability of the percentage bias (PBIAS) in the range of -2 to 2%, normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) <20%, and correlation coefficient (R²) >0.88 at most of the locations. The temporal variability in mean PBIAS for 1901-2018 was in the range of -4.5 to 4.3%, NRMSE between 9 and 19% and R² in the range of 0.87 to 0.95. The BDGR also showed its capability in replicating temporal patterns and trends of observed rainfall with greater accuracy. The product can provide reliable insights regarding various hydrometeorological issues, including historical floods, droughts, and groundwater recharge for a well-recognized global climate hotspot, Bangladesh.

Grants and funding

2021R1A2C20056990/National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF)