Abstract:
To exploit and develop the available water resources, a better understanding of melting, storage and drainage processes, and routing of the melt water through glaciers is essential. Snow melt or glacier melt models are categorized on the basis of approach adopted for snow or ice melting computation. The first approach is known as energy budget or the energy balance approach and the second is the temperature index or degree-day approach. The energy balance or heat budget of a snowpack governs the production of meltwater. The specific type of data required for the energy budget method is rarely available for carrying out the snow and glacier melt studies. The most easily available data are daily maximum and minimum temperatures. So the temperature indices are widely used in the melt estimation because it is generally considered to be the best index of the heat transfer processes associated with the snowmelt. A conceptual hydrological model was developed for simulating daily streamflow from Gangotri Glacier at a site located very close to the snout of glacier. Temperature index approach was used for computing the melting from the study basin. The model was tested for 4 ablations seasons and the performance of the model was very good for all ablation seasons.
