Quantitative analysis of snow water equivalent in the region of northern Xinjiang
新疆北疆地区雪水当量遥感定量研究

The purpose of the study was to approach the feasibility of the snow water equivalent retrieved with optical remote sensing data. Field measurement for separate layer snow density and other snow parameters was made in Feb 2009 and 2010. For different snow types, by using continuum removal method, spectral absorption characteristics of snow were analyzed. It comes to the conclusion that snow depth has a significant effect on its spectral absorption at near 1028nm, 1252nm, 1494nm and 1940nm. The deeper the depth, the smaller the absorption depth is. The image of moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer with spatial 500m resolution was used as the experimental optical remote sensing data in this study. Based on correlation analysis of the test sample, including reflectance of MODIS channel 5 and 6, elevation and snow pressure, the remote sensing model for the retrieval of snow pressure was built by statistical regression equations. The evaluation results of the model showed that its root mean square error is 0.075 and correlation coefficient between predicted and measured values is 0.72 when snow depth is less than 30 cm.