Snow cover monitoring by remote sensing and snowmelt runoff calculation in the upper Huanghe River basin

Abstract

The upper Huanghe(Yellow) River basin is situated in the northeast of the Qinghai-Xizang(Tibet)Plateau of China. The melt-water from the snow-cover is main water supply for the rivers in the region during springtime and other arid regions of the northwestern China, and the hydrological conditions of the rivers are directly controlled by the snowmeh water in spring. So snowmeh runoff forecast has importance for hydropower, flood prevention and water resources utilization. The application of remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques in snow cover monitoring and snowmeh runoff calculation in the upper Huanghe River basin are introduced amply in this paper. The key parame-ter~snow cover area can be computed by satellite images from multi-platform, multi-temporal and multi-spectral. A cluster of snow-cover data can be yielded by means of the classification filter method. Meanwhile GIS will provide relevant information for obtaining the parameters and also for zoning. According to the typical samples extracting snow covered mountainous region, the snowmelt runoff calculation models in the upper Huanghe River basin are presented and they are mentioned in detail also. The runoff snowmeh models based on the snow-cover data from NOAA images and observation data of runoff, precipitation and air temperature have been satisfactorily used for predicting the inflow to the Longyangxia Reservoir, which is located at lower end of snow cover region and is one of the largest reservoirs on the upper Huanghe River, during late March to early June. The result shows that remote sensing techniques combined with the ground meteorological and hydrological observation is of great potential in snowmelt runoff forecasting for a large river basin. With the development of remote sensing technique and the progress of the interpretation method, the forecast accuracy of snowmelt runoff will be improved in the near future. Large scale extent and few stations are two objective reality situations in China, so they should be considered in simulation and forecast. Apart from dividing, the derivation of snow cover area from satellite images would decide the results of calculating runoff. Field investigation for selection of the learning samples of different snow patterns is basis for the classification. KEY WORDS: upper Huanghe River; snowmelt runoff; remote sensing and GIS; snow cover area CLC number: P343 Document code: A

Algorithm for Snow Monitoring Using Remote Sensing Data

“…Number of researchers and indexes have been developed using remote sensing sensors and data, such as MODIS, Landsat TM, +ETM, OLI/TIRS etc. Normalized Difference Snow Index has been widely used in snow monitoring [4][5][6], as well as other indexes and ratios [7][8][9]. The NDSI in some cases is identical as the Normalized Difference Water Index NDWI [10] values.…”

Snow Cover Monitoring Using MODIS Data in Liaoning Province, Northeastern China

“…Recently, optical remote sensing data (e.g., AVHRR and Terra/MODIS) have been used to monitor snow properties in Xinjiang [10,11]. Compared with in situ observations over four winters in northern Xinjiang, results showed that MODIS data are preferable to AVHRR data for snow monitoring in Xinjiang [12,13]. However, there are very few studies of seasonal snow cover monitoring in northeastern China [14,15].…”