Evaluation of the Sources of Information for Monitoring and Extracting Spatio-temporal Patterns of Precipitation in Mexico.

摘要

According to the Global Runoff Data Center, 6% of the total annual runoff worldwide occurs in Mexico. Because most of this comes directly from rainfall, it is necessary to analyze and understand spatio-temporal patterns of precipitation in order to make the recommendations for an adequate management of available water. At present, the means to monitor precipitation in Mexico is throughout the use of a national climatological station network. However, the spatio-temporal coverage is insufficient, as an alternative, the application of the remote sensing process to obtain estimates of precipitation is explored. One of the most promissory sources is the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), which is available in an adequate format and with daily frequency of observations. We evaluated both sources of precipitation data at two levels: first, the level of preprocessing necessary to obtain adequate estimates of precipitation surfaces, and secondly, the identification of scale domains for analyzing and validating the precision of the estimates. Geospatial analysis tools were used to explore patterns inherent in the data, and also as a way to represent the patterns discovered.