Downscaling Satellite and Reanalysis Precipitation Products Using Attention-Based Deep Convolutional Neural Nets

High-quality and high-resolution precipitation products are critically important to many hydrological applications. Advances in satellite remote sensing instruments and data retrieval algorithms continue to improve the quality of the operational precipitation products. However, most satellite products existing today are still too coarse to be ingested for local water management and planning purposes. Recent advances in deep learning algorithms enable the fusion of multi-source, high-dimensional data for statistical learning. In this study, we investigated the efficacy of an attention-based, deep convolutional neural network (AU-Net) for learning spatial and temporal mappings from coarse-resolution to fine-resolution precipitation products. The skills of AU-Net models, developed using combinations of static and dynamic predictors, were evaluated over a 3 × 3° study area in Central Texas, U.S., a region known for its complex precipitation patterns and low predictability. Three coarse-resolution satellite/reanalysis precipitation products, ERA5-Land (0.1°), TRMM (0.25°), and IMERG (0.1°), are used as part of the inputs, while the predictand is the 1-km PRISM data. Auxiliary predictors include elevation, vegetation index, and air temperature. The study period includes 18 years of data (2001–2018) at the monthly scale for training, validation, and testing. Results show that the trained AU-Net models achieve different degrees of success in downscaling the baseline coarse-resolution products, depending on the total precipitation, the accuracy of large-scale patterns captured by the baseline products, and the amount of information transferable from predictors. Higher precipitation rate tends to affect AU-Net model performance negatively. Use of the attention mechanism in the AU-Net models allows for infilling of multiscale features and generation of sharper images. Correction using gauge data, if there is any, can further improve the results significantly.