Hydrological uses of meteorological radar. Validation of algorithms for rainfall estimation and forecasting
- Autores: Marc Berenguer Ferrer
- Directores de la Tesis: Daniel Sempere Torres (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) ( España ) en 2006
- Idioma: inglés
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Vicente Caselles Miralles (presid.), Rafael Sánchez (secret.), Urs Germann (voc.), Eduardo F. Cassiraga (voc.), Remko Uijlenhoet (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: E.T.S.E.C.C.P.B
- Materias:
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- Resumen
Floods are the natural hazard in Europe (especially in our area, due to its particular geo-morphological and climatic characteristics). Even though protection against floods has traditionally been faced with structural solutions (construction of big infrastructures), nowadays, these infrastructures have been complemented with hydrological warning systems, which allow anticipating risks and issue warnings with the purpose of minimizing losses.
In this framework, weather radars are tools that provide valuable information related to the 3D structure of the precipitation field with a resolution (both spatial and temporal) very appropriate to fulfill the requirements of hydrological warning systems (especially when this information is coupled with distributed rainfall-runoff models).
However, radar measurements are affected by a series of error sources, which limit its quantitative applications and it is necessary to correct them. This thesis is devoted to the study of quantitative uses of radar information, and especially its hydrological applications.
The existence of radar echoes due to non-meteorological targets (such as the orography, big buildings,...) is one of the error sources that contaminate radar information. Moreover, this phenomenon is especially relevant in particular atmospheric conditions: in these conditions, the emitted radiation is anomaly propagated. In extreme cases, this may result in the appearance of non-meteorological echoes in the areas where the beam reaches the surface (even over the sea). In the framework of this thesis, an algorithm for identifying these echoes has been proposed and implemented over a large data set simulating operational conditions.
On the other hand, an algorithm for mitigating the effects of signal attenuation caused by precipitation has also been developed and implemented.
