Corral-Alexandri, Carles (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya. Dpt. d'Enginyeria Hidraulica Maritima i Ambiental)
Sempere-Torres, Daniel (same affiliation)
Malgrat-Bregolat, Pere (Clavegueram de Barcelona S.A.)
Raso-Quintana, Jordi (same affiliation)
Weather radar is an useful tool to estimate spatial rainfall field. Since rainfall field is very important for estimating other hydrological variables, radar is called to have important applications in hydrology. Radar rain estimates require a calibration usually carried out by comparison against raingauge measurements. This work aims to evaluate the quality of radar rain estimates in Barcelona city area, making a comparison between radar and raingauge network estimates. A case study, the extreme event of 21st September 1995 (more than 100-year return period) is analysed. Comparison between radar and raingauges is made using two methods: first method compares rainfall at the points where raingauges are located; second method compares spatial rainfall fields from radar with those estimated from raingauge interpolations. Finally a complementary analysis is performed, evaluating the quality of radar estimates in terms of flow discharges. An hydrological model is used to compute flow discharges in an urban catchment from both radar estimates and raingauges network measurements. The results are compared against observed discharges, giving a measure of the hydrological quality of the weather radar estimates.