HR: 1330h
AN: H22D-0956 [PDF]
TI: Remote Sensing Applications to Improve Seasonal Forecasting of Streamflow and Reservoir Storage in the
Upper Snake River Basin
AU: * McGuire, M
EM: marketa@hydro.washington.edu
AF: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Washington, Box 352700, Seattle, WA 98195 United States
AU: Wood, A W
EM: aww@hydro.washington.edu
AF: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Washington, Box 352700, Seattle, WA 98195 United States
AU: Andreadis, K
EM: kostas@hydro.washington.edu
AF: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Washington, Box 352700, Seattle, WA 98195 United States
AU: Van Rheenen, N
EM: ntvanr@u.washington.edu
AF: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Washington, Box 352700, Seattle, WA 98195 United States
AU: Lettenmaier, D P
EM: dennisl@u.washington.edu
AF: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Washington, Box 352700, Seattle, WA 98195 United States
AB:
Mountain snowmelt contributes over eighty percent of the water supply in the Western U.S. Accurate estimates and forecasts
of snow cover and snowmelt are important to many local, state, and Federal agencies that have interests in agriculture,
hydropower, and recreation. Water resource managers depend on accurate water supply predictions to allocate a finite supply
of water to often competing demands. Although quantitative forecasts of seasonal snowmelt runoff have been made at many
locations in the West for over 50 years, these forecasts are limited by accurate knowledge of winter season precipitation and
snow accumulation in remote areas, which presently are estimated via in situ networks like the NRCS' SNOTEL. We evaluate
the potential to improve on methods based solely on in situ observations through a strategy that combines nowcasts of soil
moisture, snow water content, and other hydrologic variables using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) macroscale
hydrologic model, updated with a combination of SNOTEL-based estimates of snow water equivalent and remote sensing (MODIS)
estimates of snow areal extent. The method is evaluated for the Upper Snake River basin, for which a long-term retrospective
VIC run for the period 1950-2002 provides a model climatology, and the basis for a retrospective evaluation of seasonal
streamflow forecast skill absent updating. For winters 2001-2 and 2002-3, we evaluate the impact of both replacing and
augmenting our updating scheme based on SNOTEL data with corrections from two remote sensing products: course spatial
resolution MODIS snow-cover data and, on a more experimental basis, an AMSR snow water equivalent product. In addition to
seasonal streamflow forecasts based on an adaptation of the Extended Streamflow Prediction (ESP) method, we implement and
evaluate experimental reservoir forecasts produced with the SNAKESIM Snake River reservoir management model for forecasts
made in the winters of 2001-2 and 2003-4 for the following summers.
DE: 1863 Snow and ice (1827)
DE: 1878 Water/energy interactions
DE: 1884 Water supply
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting