Monitoring Snow-Covered Areas from NOAA-AVHRR Images in the Eastern Part of Turkey Through GIS Analysis

Author: Zuhal Akyurek
Organization: Middle East Technical University

METU Civil Eng. Dept.
Water Resources Lab.
Ankara, 06531
Turkey

Phone: 90-312-2102481
Fax: 90-312-2101262
zakyurek@metu.edu.tr

Monitoring snow-covered areas and estimating the snow water equivalence plays an important role in predicting discharges during spring months, especially in regions where snow is an important resource. In estimating snow-covered areas, besides semisupervised multispectral classification of NOAA-AVHRR images, a recently developed theta algorithm that is a multiband classification algorithm is used. The effect of slope, aspect, and wind direction in determining the snow-covered areas for April 1998 is obtained and snow line is determined considering the effects of these factors. The change in the snow line is monitored through the melting season by the help of GIS.