Bo et al. (2026) Multidimensional evaluation of four high-resolution precipitation products based on REOF zones in the upper and middle Hanjiang River Basin

Identification

• Journal: Scientific Reports
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-04-01
• Authors: Huijuan Bo, Xuefei Huang, Shaokang Yang, Lichuan Luo, Lingyun Guo, Juan Yue, Ni Zhang, Lihua Long, Wei Pan, Chong Wei, Yi Zhang
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-42304-6

Research Groups

• Hubei Water Resources Technical College, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China
• Engineering Education Center of Ecological Environment of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, Ministry of Education, Yichang, People’s Republic of China
• Xiangyang Polytechnic, Xiangyang, People’s Republic of China
• Xiantao River Embankment Administration, Xiantao, People’s Republic of China
• College of Hydraulic and Environment, China Three Gorges University, Yichang, People’s Republic of China
• Science and Technology College of Hubei University of Arts and Science, Xiangyang, People’s Republic of China

Short Summary

This study developed a novel multi-scale framework using Rotated Empirical Orthogonal Function (REOF) to delineate precipitation zones in the Hanjiang River Basin and evaluated four high-resolution precipitation products, finding CHM_PRE to be the most reliable overall, though all products showed significant performance deterioration in detecting extreme precipitation at the zonal scale.

Objective

• To introduce and apply a novel, multi-scale assessment framework, integrating precipitation zoning via Rotated Empirical Orthogonal Function (REOF), to evaluate the spatiotemporal accuracy of four high-resolution precipitation products in the upper and middle Hanjiang River Basin.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Upper and middle Hanjiang River Basin (UMHRB), delineated into five distinct precipitation zones using REOF.
• Temporal Scale: Daily precipitation data from 1975 to 2018.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Rotated Empirical Orthogonal Function (REOF) for precipitation zoning.
• Data sources:
  • Global Precipitation Measurement Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals (GPM IMERG) Final Run V07B
  • Multi-Source Weighted Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) V2
  • China Meteorological Forcing Dataset (CMFD) V0106
  • Long-term, gauge-based gridded precipitation dataset for the Chinese mainland (CHM_PRE)
  • Rainfall stations data from the National Climate Center of China (used as ground truth).

Main Results

• The study successfully validated the division of the study area into five precipitation zones based on observed data.
• CHM_PRE was identified as the most reliable precipitation product across all delineated zones.
• MSWEP demonstrated excellent performance in reproducing the probability density distribution across various precipitation intensities.
• CHM_PRE showed a tendency to overestimate the frequency of non-precipitation events (< 0.1 mm/d).
• While all products performed well in detecting extreme precipitation at the overall watershed scale, their performance significantly declined at the zonal scale.
• MSWEP exhibited the most pronounced deterioration in extreme precipitation detection at the zonal scale, with Kling–Gupta Efficiency (KGE) for Rx1day (maximum 1-day precipitation) dropping to 0.07 in Zone 5 and 0.09 in Zone 3.

Contributions

• Introduction of a novel, multi-scale assessment framework that integrates REOF-based precipitation zoning for a more nuanced evaluation of precipitation products.
• Provides a detailed, zone-specific performance analysis of widely used high-resolution precipitation products, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses beyond a watershed-level assessment.
• Offers valuable insights for the informed selection of appropriate precipitation datasets for specific hydrological and meteorological applications, especially concerning extreme events at sub-basin scales.

Funding

• National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, No. 42401030)
• Hubei Province Construction Science and Technology Plan Project (No. JK2024029)
• Hubei Provincial Education Department Research Project (No. B2024488)
• Hubei Water Resources Technical College Special Doctoral Research Project (HBSYBSZX202404)
• High-Level Talent Research Startup Fund of Xiangyang Polytechnic (No. XYZYZZ202405)

Citation

@article{Bo2026Multidimensional,
  author = {Bo, Huijuan and Huang, Xuefei and Yang, Shaokang and Luo, Lichuan and Guo, Lingyun and Yue, Juan and Zhang, Ni and Long, Lihua and Pan, Wei and Wei, Chong and Zhang, Yi},
  title = {Multidimensional evaluation of four high-resolution precipitation products based on REOF zones in the upper and middle Hanjiang River Basin},
  journal = {Scientific Reports},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1038/s41598-026-42304-6},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-42304-6}
}