Evaluation of satellite-based and reanalysis precipitation datasets by hydrologic simulation in the Chenab river basin

Several satellite-based and reanalysis products with a high spatial and temporal resolution have become available in recent decades, making it worthwhile to study the performance of multiple precipitation forcing data on hydrological modeling. This study aims to examine the veracity of five precipitation products employing a semi-distributed hydrological model, i.e., the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate streamflow over the Chenab River Basin (CRB). The performance indices such as coefficient of determination (R2), Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) and percentage bias (PBIAS) were used to compare observed and simulated streamflow at daily and monthly scales during calibration (2015–2018) and validation (2019–2020). The hydrologic performance of European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Reanalysis (ERA) 5-Land (ERA5) was very good at daily (calibration R2=0.83, NSE=0.81, PBIAS=−6%; validation R2=0.75, NSE=0.74, PBIAS=−9.6%) and monthly ( calibration R2=0.94, NSE=0.94, PBIAS=−3.3%; validation R2=0.91, NSE=0.89, PBIAS=−3.2%) scales. This study suggests that the ERA5 precipitation product was the most reliable of the five precipitation products, while the CHIRPS performance was the worst. These findings contribute to highlighting the performance of five precipitation products and reference in the selection of precipitation data as input data to the SWAT model in similar regions.