Toshiyuki HONMA

Evaluation of the spatial distribution of snow depth derived from distributed snowmelt runoff analysis

Mianjio LU

There is a movement to effectively use the melting water in order to avoid cut of water supply in summer season that may last longer than one month. However, it is very difficult to understand the snowfall and the snowmelt over the whole basin.
The objective of this study is to develop a new distributed snowmelt model capable to represent the vertical structure of the snowpack. This is done by adding a snow densification model into current model that takes into account bulk budget of the snowfall water equivalent. By using the newly developed model, the temporal and spatial distribution of snow depth can be estimated numerically.
In addition to the model development, the numerically derived distribution makes it possible to compare with snow depth distribution measured by air-borne laser profiler and to verify the modeling strategy.
In this study, the snow distribution characteristics and its relationship with the topographical factors are analyzed first at the Yagisawa Dam basin, the study basin. Then the calculated and measured snow distributions are compared. It is shown that the total amount of snow water resource is well estimated though the spatial distribution of snow depth still needs to be improved.