TY  - JOUR
A1  - Lütkemeier, Robert
A1  - Stein, Lina
A1  - Drees, Lukas
A1  - Müller, Hannes
A1  - Liehr, Stefan
T1  - Uncertainty of rainfall products: impact on modelling household nutrition from rain-fed agriculture in Southern Africa
T2  - Water
N2  - Good quality data on precipitation are a prerequisite for applications like short-term weather forecasts, medium-term humanitarian assistance, and long-term climate modelling. In Sub-Saharan Africa, however, the meteorological station networks are frequently insufficient, as in the Cuvelai-Basin in Namibia and Angola. This paper analyses six rainfall products (ARC2.0, CHIRPS2.0, CRU-TS3.23, GPCCv7, PERSIANN-CDR, and TAMSAT) with respect to their performance in a crop model (APSIM) to obtain nutritional scores of a household’s requirements for dietary energy and further macronutrients. All products were calibrated to an observed time series using Quantile Mapping. The crop model output was compared against official yield data. The results show that the products (i) reproduce well the Basin’s spatial patterns, and (ii) temporally agree to station records (r = 0.84). However, differences exist in absolute annual rainfall (range: 154 mm), rainfall intensities, dry spell duration, rainy day counts, and the rainy season onset. Though calibration aligns key characteristics, the remaining differences lead to varying crop model results. While the model well reproduces official yield data using the observed rainfall time series (r = 0.52), the products’ results are heterogeneous (e.g., CHIRPS: r = 0.18). Overall, 97% of a household’s dietary energy demand is met. The study emphasizes the importance of considering the differences among multiple rainfall products when ground measurements are scarce.
KW  - subsistence agriculture
KW  - food security
KW  - model uncertainty
KW  - remote sensing
KW  - satellite rainfall estimates
Y1  - 2018
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/57539
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-575390
SN  - 2073-4441
VL  - 10
IS  - Article 499
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  -