TY - Generic T1 - Estimating Snowmelt Contribution from the Gangotri Glacier Catchment into the Bhagirathi River, India T2 - 84th Annual Western Snow Conference Y1 - 2016 A1 - Rodney M. Chai A1 - Leigh A. Stearns A1 - C. J. van der Veen AB -

The Bhagirathi River emerges from the terminus of the Gangotri Glacier at 4000 m.a.s.l., and is a major tributary of the Ganges River. The Ganges is the world’s third-largest river by discharge and provides water to over 350 million people in India and Bangladesh. The discharge of the Bhagirathi, which is driven by seasonal snow cover and melt, therefore has significant impacts on the downstream water supply to a population larger than the United States. Discharge data are scarce along the Ganges River, particularly in the headwaters. The Snowmelt Runoff Model (SRM) is a simple temperature index model that uses relatively few parameters to model runoff. This makes it ideal in remote areas like the Himalayas where it is difficult to get on-the-ground data that an energy balance model would require.  A digital elevation model was used to divide the basin into elevation bands, and MODIS tiles were used to determine snow-covered area for 2010 and 2011. The results show that of the three SRM parameters, SCA showed the strongest correlation with both observed and modeled discharge in 2010, with R2 values of 0.64 and 0.56 respectively. In 2011, however, all three SRM parameters performed poorly with both observed and modeled discharge.  (KEYWORDS:  SRM, Gangotri glacier, snow covered areas, Ganges River)

JF - 84th Annual Western Snow Conference CY - Seattle, Washington UR - /files/PDFs/2016Chai.pdf ER -