LANDSCAPE CONTROLS ON SNOW ACCUMULATION IN AN ALPINE CATCHMENT

The central question addressed by this poster is relationship between landscape types and snow accumulation. Of particular interest is the relative amount of snow accumulation in talus areas. Talus areas play an important role in alpine hydrology because these areas have been shown to provide water late into the summer growing season. One reason that talus areas may provide important sources of water late into the growing season is because they accumulate more snow than other landscape types in alpine basins. The roughness of talus areas reduces the redistribution of snow by wind, which may cause an increase in accumulation. Furthermore, talus areas are often located beneath steep rock faces, and these areas may accumulate relatively high amounts of snow due to sluffs and avalanches.Snow surveys were conducted at maximum accumulation in the Green Lakes Basin in the Colorado Front Range during the years 1997 through 2000. This basin has been extensively studied in the past, and the major landscape types have been mapped and digitized onto a GIS. Using a combination of field measurements and geostatistical techniques we have estimated the distribution of snow water equivalent throughout the basin and compared it to the mapped landscape types.