Comparison of three types of laser optical disdrometers under natural rainfall conditions |
| |
Authors: | Lisbeth Lolk Johannsen Nives Zambon Peter Strauss Tomas Dostal Martin Neumann David Zumr |
| |
Institution: | 1. Department of Water, Atmosphere and Environment, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austrialisbeth.johannsen@boku.ac.athttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-8729-929X;3. Department of Water, Atmosphere and Environment, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria;4. Institute of Land and Water Management Research, Petzenkirchen, Austria;5. Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic |
| |
Abstract: | ABSTRACTOptical 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: | optical disdrometer rainfall kinetic energy rainfall erosivity drop size distribution soil erosion |
|
|