Tipping Bucket Rain Gauges in Hydrological Research: Summary on Measurement Uncertainties, Calibration, and Error Reduction Strategies

Abstract

Tipping bucket rain gauges (TBRs) continue to be one of the most widely used pieces of equipment for rainfall monitoring; they are frequently used for the calibration, validation, and downscaling of radar and remote sensing data, due to their major advantages—low cost, simplicity and low-energy consumption. Thus, many works have focused and continue to focus on their main disadvantage—measurement biases (mainly in wind and mechanical underestimations). However, despite arduous scientific effort, calibration methodologies are not frequently implemented by monitoring networks’ operators or data users, propagating bias in databases and in the different applications of such data, causing uncertainty in the modeling, management, and forecasting in hydrological research, mainly due to a lack of knowledge. Within this context, this work presents a review of the scientific advances in TBR measurement uncertainties, calibration, and error reduction strategies from a hydrological point of view, by describing different rainfall monitoring techniques, summarizing TBR measurement uncertainties, focusing on calibration and error reduction strategies, discussing the state of the art and providing future perspectives of the technology.