Introduction to Snow Monitoring in River Basins (Snow Water Equivalent & Snow Covered Area)

How do we monitor snow in River Basins? What is Snow Water Equivalent (SWE)?
What is Snow Covered Area (SCA)? Why are mountains called the frozen water towers? Is snow important for basin water balances? Find out in this video, with real examples from Afghanistan & Tajikistan.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:07 Frozen water towers & the water cycle
01:50 Importance of quantifying water stored as snow
02:27 Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) – definition
03:01 Snow Water Volume (SWV) – definition
03:22 Calculation of SWE
03:34 FLDAS & FEWS-NET data portal – data access
03:59 Google Earth Engine – FLDAS SWE
04:31 SWE monitoring – Salma dam catchment
05:09 Importance of ground data
05:46 SWE example - North Afghanistan
07:48 Snow Covered Area (SCA) – definition
08:11 Comparison SWE & SCA – Salma dam catchment
08:50 SCA monitoring
09:08 Concluding remarks

Useful links:
PDF of presentation notes: https://bit.ly/2XY9PGm
FLDAS Project: https://ldas.gsfc.nasa.gov/FLDAS/
USGS FEWS Net data portal: https://earlywarning.usgs.gov/fews/se...
USDA snow monitoring: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/...

YouTube Videos:
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Snow Monitoring (this video):    • Introduction to Snow Monitoring in Ri...  

#SnowMonitoring #SWE #SCA