Remote Sensing and GIS for Water Resource Decision Making
Abstract
Climatological controls on snow distribution and associated cycling of water and energy dictates water availability for sustaining ecosystems and for meeting the demands of the Western US. Over the past 50 years, climate change and associated increases in air temperature have accelerated snowmelt rates throughout the region. Projecting these trends into the coming century, climate and economic models predict decreases in water availability and an associated devaluation of California's agricultural lands by ~15% - an economic loss amounting to billions of dollars annually. Improving knowledge of physical processes related to snow distribution is critical for reducing uncertainty in these predictions and in turn enabling mitigation of impacts through informed environmental policy and efficient resource management. We are collaborating with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) to incorporate a GIS-based information product that integrates snowpack observations from ground, airborne, and remotely sensed data into their water forecasting process. The central data product is a snow water equivalence (SWE) reconstruction that computes the SWE for the snow maximum for each season of interest (Molotch, 2009). The SWE product is then analyzed in ArcGIS using watersheds (computed using NHD+ hyrography data) that feed stream gauges monitored by LADWP. In this way, we integrate snowpack from multiple sources to develop a GIS-based process for comparing LADWP runoff measurements with estimates from space-based observations. We will present the results of our case study of five watersheds in the Owens Valley for the 2001 through 2007 snow seasons.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009AGUFMIN31A0995S
- Keywords:
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- 0736 CRYOSPHERE / Snow;
- 1819 HYDROLOGY / Geographic Information Systems;
- 1880 HYDROLOGY / Water management