Optimization of PRISM parameters using the SCEM-UA algorithm for gridded daily time series precipitation

Long-term high-resolution hydro-meteorological data has been recognized as an essential element in establishing the water resources plan. The increasing demand for spatial precipitation in various areas such as climate, hydrology, geography, ecology, and environment is apparent. However, potential limitations of the existing area-weighted and numerical interpolation methods for interpolating precipitation in high altitude areas remains less explored. The proposed PRISM (Precipitation-Elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) model can produce gridded precipitation that can adequately consider topographic characteristics (e.g., slope and altitude), which are not substantially included in the existing interpolation techniques. In this study, the PRISM model was optimized with SCEM-UA (Shuffled Complex Evolution Metropolis-University of Arizona) to produce daily gridded precipitation. As a result, the minimum impact radius was calculated 9.10 km and the maximum 34.99 km. The altitude of coastal weighted was 681.03 m, the minimum and maximum distances from coastal were 9.85 km and 38.05 km. The distance weighting factor was calculated to be about 0.87, confirming that the PRISM result was very sensitive to distance. The results showed that the proposed PRISM model could reproduce the observed statistical properties reasonably well.