Evaluation of NASA land information system in prediection stream runoff: case study of Atbara and Blue Nile Sub-Basins

Nile Basin faces major challenges regarding data scarcity required for planning and management studies, such as rainfall, streams runoff, and the weather stations data. Numerous studies tried to overcome this problem utilizing different remote sensing products, which provided a great solution to solve these issues with a high level of certainty. NASA developed a Land Information System which integrates satellite and ground-based observational data products through terrestrial hydrology modeling and data assimilation techniques. This research aims to overcome the data sacristy using NASA LIS model. The targeted study areas are Blue Nile Basin and Atbara Basin due to their importance for the Nile Basin flow. The model validation was conducted using three observed stations and two comparison models; WEAP model is used to simulate Atbara Basin while MIKE-BASIN model is used for Blue Nile Basin. Four performance indicators used to assess LIS model performance (i.e., Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE), Percent-BIAS (PBAIS), Coefficient of Determination (R2) and Root mean square error to observations standard deviation ratio (RSR)). The indicator results showed very good performance for the LIS model at Atbara Basin, while it showed unsatisfactory performance for Blue Nile Basin. This demonstrates that LIS model is suitable for natural flow basins where no water infrastructures exist, and that it could simulate sufficiently in basins facing data leakage and have no observation systems like the Nile Basin.