Monitoring Snow-Cover Depletion by Coupling Satellite Imagery with a Distributed Snowmelt Model

Abstract

Many watersheds in Canada and in the northern United States see most of their precipitation in the form of snow. Many of these watersheds are the sites of important hydropower development projects. During snowmelt, watershed managers require information on snowpack depletion in order to optimize power production while minimizing flooding risk. In many cases, management techniques are based on simple correlations extracted from data collected in previous years or on inappropriate tools for data interpretation. Both of these factors can affect the reliability of forecasts and result in production losses or increased risk in downstream areas. This paper presents an approach to improve snowmelt forecasts. A simple distributed snowmelt model based on the degree-days approach is used to predict snowmelt based on weather forecasts. To improve forecasts, a feedback algorithm is presented that allows for real-time model adjustment using the integration of