Gold Standard in selection of rainfall forecasting models for soybean crops region

Abstract

Rainfall data forecasting is essential in agricultural sciences due to impacts caused by water excess or deficit on crop growth. Our study aimed to develop a method to select rainfall forecast models using references with negligible error denoted as the gold standard. To this end, we used forecasting models from national centers such as Canadian Meteorological Center (CMC), European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), and Center for Weather Forecasting and Climate Studies (CPTEC). The study area comprised the western mesoregion of Paraná State (Brazil), and data were gathered from October to March between the soybean crop seasons of 2010/2011 and 2015/2016. Ten-day period clusters, corresponding to 240 h forecasts in the centers, were used to assess agreement with the gold standard. Our results showed that forecasting center selection must be based on rainfall value ranges and geographic locations. Selection according to the highest agreement with the gold standard was estimated at 76.9% for range 1 in CPTEC, 38.5% for range 2 and 4 in ECMWF, and 38.5% for range 3 in NCEP. In conclusion, the proposed method was efficient in selecting forecasting centers in areas of interest.