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. 2020 Jan 21;65(4):524-535.
doi: 10.1080/02626667.2019.1709641. eCollection 2020.

Comparison of three types of laser optical disdrometers under natural rainfall conditions

Lisbeth Lolk Johannsen  1 , Nives Zambon  1 , Peter Strauss  2 , Tomas Dostal  3 , Martin Neumann  3 , David Zumr  3 , Thomas A Cochrane  4 , Günter Blöschl  5 , Andreas Klik  1
Affiliations

Comparison of three types of laser optical disdrometers under natural rainfall conditions

Lisbeth Lolk Johannsen et al. Hydrol Sci J. .

Abstract

Optical disdrometers can be used to estimate rainfall erosivity; however, the relative accuracy of different disdrometers is unclear. This study compared three types of optical laser-based disdrometers to quantify differences in measured rainfall characteristics and to develop correction factors for kinetic energy (KE). Two identical PWS100 (Campbell Scientific), one Laser Precipitation Monitor (Thies Clima) and a first-generation Parsivel (OTT) were collocated with a weighing rain gauge (OTT Pluvio2) at a site in Austria. All disdrometers underestimated total rainfall compared to the rain gauge with relative biases from 2% to 29%. Differences in drop size distribution and velocity resulted in different KE estimates. By applying a linear regression to the KE-intensity relationship of each disdrometer, a correction factor for KE between the disdrometers was developed. This factor ranged from 1.15 to 1.36 and allowed comparison of KE between different disdrometer types despite differences in measured drop size and velocity.

Keywords: drop size distribution; optical disdrometer; rainfall erosivity; rainfall kinetic energy; soil erosion.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Experimental set-up of disdrometers and rain gauge at the HOAL site.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Comparison of the daily rainfall amount measured by the rain gauge and each disdrometer at the HOAL site for the measurement periods August–October 2018 and March–May 2019.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Long-term daily rainfall measurement comparison for all disdrometers at different sites (HOAL, Mistelbach, Prague).
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Accumulated rainfall (left) and intensity (right) over time for the event on 1 September 2018.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Comparison of the intensities measured per minute by the rain gauge and each disdrometer for all events.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Mean drop size (left) and velocity (right) distribution of the selected events analysed. Each drop size and velocity class is shown as the percentage of drops within this class out of the total number of drops.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
Mean velocity and standard deviation of each drop size class and the terminal fall velocity line drawn after the data by Gunn and Kinzer (1949).
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
Percentage rainfall out of the total rainfall amount per diameter class for each disdrometer.
Figure 9.
Figure 9.
Percentage kinetic energy per drop size (left) and velocity class (right) for each disdrometer.
Figure 10.
Figure 10.
Kinetic energy versus rainfall intensity for all rainy minutes of the selected events with linear regression for each disdrometer.
Figure 11.
Figure 11.
Kinetic energy of each event measured by PWS 2 as compared to Thies (left) and Parsivel (right) and the event KE multiplied with the correction factor (CF) of 1.36 for Thies and 1.15 for Parsivel.
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References

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Grants and funding

This research was performed within the project “Kinetic energy of rainfall as a driving force of soil detachment and transport”. Financial support was provided through the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): I 3049-N29 and W1219-N22, and the Czech Science Foundation (GACR): GF17-33751L.

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