ABSTRACT
Floods are among the most devastating natural hazards in terms of both the number of people affected globally and the proportion of individual fatalities. The prediction of flood hazard requires accurate precipitation estimation produced at fine space–time scales. The high space–time variability, the scarcity of ground-based sensors, and the observational limitations associated with their operation in mountainous terrain make monitoring of flood-producing storms and their hydrologic response a particularly challenging task. Precipitation measurements from space-borne sensors offer unique advantages relative to ground-based sensors, since they are uninhibited by terrain or spatial inconsistencies and can provide quantitative precipitation estimates at quasi-global scale. The significance of these advantages in quantitative precipitation estimation has been recognized by the hydrologic community, where numerous studies in the past decades have demonstrated the use of satellite precipitation data for the prediction of floods over the globe. This chapter provides an overview of the satellite precipitation applications in flood modeling to highlight current challenges and opportunities in satellite-precipitation-driven flood prediction.
