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The use of weather radar for rainfall-runoff modeling, case of Seybouse watershed (Algeria)

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Abstract

The use of radar for rainfall and runoff estimation is beneficial because of the high spatial and temporal resolution and large areal coverage; the main objective of this research is the calibration of the weather radar of Annaba for hydrological applications. To improve rainfall distribution estimation for the maritime watershed (1,129 km2) (Seybouse, Annaba), located in the north eastern of Algeria, a new technique was used based on the creation of six virtual rainfall stations uniformly throughout the area. The rainfall data for these virtual stations are estimated from raw weather radar data using a newly developed program called “Rain-Data ver1.0.” The calibrated radar-derived rainfall is used as input data in the Gridded Surface Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis model; the results show that all radar rainfall input data tend to produce more accurate runoff hydrographs than rain gauge data. Finally, the use of radar rainfall data to estimate runoff gives encouraging results, especially in regions where continuous gauge rainfall measurements are not available and rain gauges are sparsely distributed.

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Abbreviations

ASWR:

Algérien Service weather radar

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Acknowledgments

The first and the last authors gratefully acknowledge Leila Sadouki, Hamza Atoui and Ahmed Chargui for their help, and Azzeddine Amri chef Sétif Meteorological Department (SMD) for providing data radar list to laboratory of hydraulic and hydraulics construction. The authors also thank National Agency of Water Resources (NAWR) for providing the rain gauge and discharge data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Hydraulics and Hydraulic Constructions, Badji Mokhtar-Annaba University, P.O. BOX 12, 23000, Annaba, Algeria

    M. Keblouti, L. Ouerdachi & S. Berhail

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  1. M. Keblouti
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  2. L. Ouerdachi
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  3. S. Berhail
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Correspondence to M. Keblouti.

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Keblouti, M., Ouerdachi, L. & Berhail, S. The use of weather radar for rainfall-runoff modeling, case of Seybouse watershed (Algeria). Arab J Geosci 8, 1–11 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-013-1224-7

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