It is not simple since there are many possible answers to your question, depending on the data you need. In case you are seeking rainfall amount for predicting ground effects such as landslides and floods, then a very good product, available for the past 20 years or so, is the TRMM based Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA, Adler et al., 2000) which has been used by many applications and which shoudl nicely cover Botswana.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, TRMM mission is now dismissed and we must rely on the new forthcoming product based on the global weather satellite missions of NASA such as the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission (http://gpm.gsfc.nasa.gov).

Hope this helps!

Best

Filippo

Hi

As you said, now there a huge amounts of satellite based rainfall data. and answering to your question is somewhat difficult. Generally speaking, I think PERSIAN-CDR, ECMWF and GPM are the best ones... You should test all of them, based on Observed data, and then select the best source.

the best regards

Azizian

I did the same question 6 years ago:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_best_satellite_rainfall_product

Many replies are still valid...plus SM2RAIN-derived rainfall products :)

http://hydrology.irpi.cnr.it/research/sm2rain/

Actually, I believe that our SM2RAIN-ASCAT product will work very well in southern Africa...see here

Article An assessment of the performance of global rainfall estimate...

SM2RAIN-ASCAT datasets can be downloaded here:

http://hydrology.irpi.cnr.it/download-area/sm2rain-data-sets/

Hi Onneile.

The question is a not an easy one to answer because products are based on different physical principles, which call for different sensors and remote sensing techniques. However, I think you should first take a look at what the various techniques address and, even more important, at what are the pros and cons of the algorithms behind the products. An appraisal of the techniques is contained in the articles:

https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/15/1109/2011/

Article Global precipitation measurement: Methods, datasets and applications

Article Global precipitation measurements for validating climate models

After you have made yourself clear on the above, or in parallel, you may want to pay a visit to the International Precipitation Working Group (IPWG) web site. There you find a section on data and products with links to the products themselves and some explanations on their structure and recommended use:

http://ipwg.isac.cnr.it/

Best regards,

Vincenzo Levizzani

Hi

Generally speaking, I think TRMM and The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) are the best choice.

Best regards

Bit late, but we have recently conducted the most comprehensive global precipitation dataset evaluation study, check it out here: https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/21/6201/2017/hess-21-6201-2017.html

Many gauges located in southern Africa included in the analysis.

Check out this very recent (today) review paper:

Article On the performance of satellite precipitation products in ri...

Hiii..

You can try TRMM standard gauge precipitation product. I think with newer version they have improved a lot.

please check out these links for further information.

http://sharaku.eorc.jaxa.jp/GSMaP/

http://sharaku.eorc.jaxa.jp/GSMaP_crest/

Hi Onneile

Selection of the satellite precipitation product depends on your specific purpose and the historical data availability.

All the above suggestions will be very helpful for the selection of the product.

I just wanted to add about a satellite product CHIRPS (https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201566).

Some of the recent study shows it's potential for the application

1. https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata2017145

2. http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/9/7/669/html

2. https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/hess-2017-558/hess-2017-558.pdf

Hi

if you want to validate your satellite products, I recommend you use the gridded data files of SIEREM, only at the monthly time scale, but exclusively calculated from observed available data at each time step (month).

It covers the period January 1940 to Decemebr 1999.

Available for free here

Data Monthly gridded rainfall data for Africa 1/2 square degree J...

I hope it can be useful.

Best

Gil

I think GPM now is working very well for Africa and Asia region.

Hello Ajad Ji,

Generally i download whole the file and mask using R software.

Hi,

I believe that validation is important before application, not only by just comparing the data with observed time series (with raingauge data or hydrological modelling) but also comparing certain features of the time series is important.

We publish this short article in a early career journal evaluating two P global products making the assessment with some precipitation indexes.

Article Analysis of precipitation features estimated by reanalysis d...

Regards

Dear Ayad Mohammed Fadhil,

You can download TRMM and GPM for a specified area here:

https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/SSW/#keywords=

Regards,

Dear you can use Landsat satellite imagery

regards

Hi Onneile,

In general, there are a number of possible answers. However, the GPM, TRMM6 and TRMM7 which has been widely used by many stuides, can be considered as good products and sources to consider.

Hope this general answer helps

Kind Regards

Alaa A.Jasim

Hi

If you use Precipitation from remote sensing products, you can improve their performance using local raingauges. The merging algorithm described in this work have proved to be successful in reducing the remote sensed field error. In the paper the parameters of the merging are analyzed against the raingauges density so that one defines their value with the features of the local raingauge network and, therefore, one will not need to perform a calibration procedure.

Conference Paper Analysis of the kernel bandwidth influence in the double smo...

The Water Cycle Integrator of the eartH2Observe project have several global precipitation dataset at

http://www.earth2observe.eu/

Regards

It actually depends on your study region. For the Blue Nile Basin, you can refer the following papers: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d1b3/487606ba0724b74c61b9ce0799906ec45321.pdf

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/2011JHM1292.1

I agree with Yared Bayissa, it depends of the case study region, and the purpose of your study, in order to select the suitable spacial and temporal resolution. regarding to the GPM data it has a high spacial and temporal resolution, but it doesn't perform well in all regions, try to select multi products and evaluate each one using observed data, then you can decide which product you can use.

TRMM and GPM are manly source of rainfall data

Hi, You can extent the time frame of data that you have and improve its accuracy by merging information. Want to improve the performance of your hydrological model on a scarce data basin?!! We introduce you to our new article where a satellite-reanalysis-gauge merging algorithm is detailed. Article Improving Rainfall Fields in Data-Scarce Basins: Influence o...