Abstract:
Continuous monitoring of snow cover area (SCA) in space and
time is a vital input to estimate the snow/glacier melt runoff, glacial
mass balance and other hydrological studies. The present
study aims to find out the spatio-temporal variation of SCA and
inter-relationship between snow accumulation and topography in
the Upper Ganga River Basin (UGRB) including Bhagirathi,
Alaknanda, Mandakini and Pindar River sub-basins, central
Himalaya using MODIS Terra (MOD10A2) data. SCA is found
32.33% to the total basin area of 18724km2 in UGRB. The
Average of 12 year shows that Bhagirathi River Basin has maximum
SCA 33.25%, whereas Pindar river basin has minimum SCA
17.50% among these four sub-basins. Maximum rate of change
of SCA is found in the Mandakini River Basin. Slope class
20 –30 has more favorable conditions for snow accumulation.
North and north-west aspect has higher snow accumulation with
maximum positive attribution in January and minimum in July.
