This paper presents a comparison between C-band and X-band radar data over an instrumented and regulated catchment of the Paris region. We study the benefits of polarimetry and the respective hydrological impacts with the help of rain gauge and flow measurements using a semi-distributed hydrological model. Both types of radar confirm the high spatial variability of the rainfall down to their space resolution (1 km and 250 m, respectively). Therefore, X-band radar data underscore the limitations of simulations using a semi-distributed model with sub-catchments of an average size of 2 km. The use of the polarimetric capacity of the Météo-France C-band radar was limited to corrections of the horizontal reflectivity, and its rainfall estimates are adjusted with the help of a rain gauge network. On the contrary, no absolute calibration and scanning optimisation were performed for the polarimetric X-band radar of the Ecole des Ponts ParisTech (hereafter referred to as the ENPC X-band radar). In spite of this and the fact that the catchment is much closer to the C-band radar than to the X-band radar (average distance of 15 km vs. 35 km, respectively), the latter seems to perform at least as well as the former, but with a higher spatial resolution. This was best highlighted with the help of a multifractal analysis, which also shows that the X-band radar was able to pick up a few rainfall extremes that were smoothed out by the C-band radar.

Recent studies have highlighted the need for high resolution rainfall measurements for better modelling of urban and peri-urban catchment responses. In this work, we used a fully-distributed model called “Multi-Hydro” to study small-scale rainfall variability and its hydrological impacts. The catchment modelled is a semi-urban area located in the southwest region of Paris, an area that has been previously partially validated. At this time, we make some changes to the model, henceforth using its drainage system globally, and we investigate the influence of small-scale rainfall variability by modelling three rainfall events with two different rainfall data inputs: the C-band radar data provided by Météo-France at a 1 km × 1 km × 5 min resolution, and the new X-band radar (recently installed at Ecole des Ponts, France) data at a resolution of 250 m × 250 m × 3.41 min, thereby presenting the gains of better resolution (with the help of Universal Multifractals). Finally, we compare the Multi-Hydro hydrological results with those obtained using an operational semi-distributed model called “Optim Sim” over the same area to revalidate Multi-Hydro modelling, and discuss the model’s limitations and the impacts of data quality and resolution, observing the difficulties associated with semi-distributed models when accounting the spatial variability of weather radar data. This work concludes that it may be useful in future to improve rainfall data acquisition, aiming for better spatio-temporal resolution (now achieved by the weather dual-polarized X-band radars) and data quality when considering small-scale rainfall variability, and to merge deterministic, fully-distributed and stochastic models into a hybrid model which would be capable of taking this small-scale rainfall variability into account.

This paper presents a comparison between rain gauges, C-band and X-band radar data over an instrumented and regulated catchment of the Paris region, as well as their respective hydrological impacts with the help of flow observations and a semi-distributed hydrological model. Both radars confirm the high spatial variability of the rainfall down to their space resolution (respectively one kilometer and 250 m) and therefore underscore limitations of semi-distributed simulations. The use of the polarimetric capacity of the Météo-France C-band radar was limited to corrections of the horizontal reflectivity and its rainfall estimates are adjusted with the help of a rain gauge network. On the contrary, neither calibration was performed for the polarimetric X-band radar of the Ecole des Ponts ParisTech (below called ENPC X-band radar), nor any optimization of its scans. In spite of that and the non-negligible fact that the catchment was much closer to the C-band radar than to the X-band radar (20 km vs. 40 km), the latter seems to perform at least as well as the former, but with a higher scale resolution. This characteristic was best highlighted with the help of a multifractal analysis of the respective radar data, which also shows that the X-band radar was able to pick up a few extremes that were smoothed out by the C-band radar.