Snow depth mapping from stereo satellite imagery in mountainous terrain: evaluation using airborne laser-scanning data

International audience Accurate knowledge of snow depth distributions in mountain catchments is critical for applications in hy-drology and ecology. Recently, a method was proposed to map snow depth at meter-scale resolution from very-high-resolution stereo satellite imagery (e.g., Pléiades) with an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Cryosphere
Main Authors: Deschamps-Berger, César, Gascoin, Simon, Berthier, Etienne, Deems, Jeffrey, Gutmann, Ethan, Dehecq, Amaury, Shean, David, Dumont, Marie
Other Authors: Centre d'études spatiales de la biosphère (CESBIO), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OMP), Météo France-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Météo France-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02997090
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02997090/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02997090/file/tc-14-2925-2020.pdf
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2925-2020
Description
Summary:International audience Accurate knowledge of snow depth distributions in mountain catchments is critical for applications in hy-drology and ecology. Recently, a method was proposed to map snow depth at meter-scale resolution from very-high-resolution stereo satellite imagery (e.g., Pléiades) with an accuracy close to 0.5 m. However, the validation was limited to probe measurements and unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry, which sampled a limited fraction of the to-pographic and snow depth variability. We improve upon this evaluation using accurate maps of the snow depth derived from Airborne Snow Observatory laser-scanning measurements in the Tuolumne river basin, USA. We find a good agreement between both datasets over a snow-covered area of 138 km 2 on a 3 m grid, with a positive bias for a Pléiades snow depth of 0.08 m, a root mean square error of 0.80 m and a normalized median absolute deviation (NMAD) of 0.69 m. Satellite data capture the relationship between snow depth and elevation at the catchment scale and also small-scale features like snow drifts and avalanche deposits at a typical scale of tens of meters. The random error at the pixel level is lower in snow-free areas than in snow-covered areas, but it is reduced by a factor of 2 (NMAD of approximately 0.40 m for snow depth) when averaged to a 36 m grid. We conclude that satellite photogrammetry stands out as a convenient method to estimate the spatial distribution of snow depth in high mountain catchments.