Correction and preparation of continuously measured raingauge data : A standard method in North Rhine-Westphalia

Continuous raingauge measurements are an important input variable for detailed rainfall-runoff simulation. In North Rhine-Westphalia, more than 150 continuous raingauges are used for local hydrological design through the use of site specific rainfall runoff models. Requiring gap-free data, the State Environmental Agency developed methods to use a combination of daily measurements and neighbouring continuous measurements for filling periods of lacking data in a given raindata series. The objective of such a method is to obtain plausible data for water balance simulations. For more than 3500 station years the described methodology has been applied.