Application of Convolutional Neural Network for Spatiotemporal Bias Correction of Daily Satellite-Based Precipitation

Abstract

Spatiotemporal precipitation data is one of the essential components in modeling hydrological problems. Although the estimation of these data has achieved remarkable accuracy owning to the recent advances in remote-sensing technology, gaps remain between satellite-based precipitation and observed data due to the dependence of precipitation on the spatiotemporal distribution and the specific characteristics of the area. This paper presents an efficient approach based on a combination of the convolutional neural network and the autoencoder architecture, called the convolutional autoencoder (ConvAE) neural network, to correct the pixel-by-pixel bias for satellite-based products. The two daily gridded precipitation datasets with a spatial resolution of 0.25° employed are Asian Precipitation-Highly Resolved Observational Data Integration towards Evaluation (APHRODITE) as the observed data and Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks-Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR) as the satellite-based data. Furthermore, the Mekong River basin was selected as a case study, because it is one of the largest river basins, spanning six countries, most of which are developing countries. In addition to the ConvAE model, another bias correction method based on the standard deviation method was also introduced. The performance of the bias correction methods was evaluated in terms of the probability distribution, temporal correlation, and spatial correlation of precipitation. Compared with the standard deviation method, the ConvAE model demonstrated superior and stable performance in most comparisons conducted. Additionally, the ConvAE model also exhibited impressive performance in capturing extreme rainfall events, distribution trends, and described spatial relationships between adjacent grid cells well. The findings of this study highlight the potential of the ConvAE model to resolve the precipitation bias correction problem. Thus, the ConvAE model could be applied to other satellite-based products, higher-resolution precipitation data, or other issues related to gridded data.