Investigating the persistence of snow on vegetation using Landsat 8 images (case study: Erbil province)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 i have not

2 Science and Research Branch, Daneshgah Blvd, Simon Bulivar Blvd, Tehran

3 Department of Watershed Management Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources and, Tehran University, Karaj, Iran

Abstract
A significant part of the precipitation falls in the form of snow in mountainous areas, the flow resulting from melting snow constitute significant part of the runoff, which is effective in providi- ng water sources and feeding underground water tables in some cases, it causes destructive floods. Therefore, knowing the characteristics of snow is of great importance for the effectively managing of water resources. Due to the harsh conditions and lack of access to mountainous areas, it isn’t easy to measure on the ground. Therefore, it is essential to use remote sensing facilities to estim_ate information about snow. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the durability of snow cover and the correlation between them using satellite images. In this study, we used the pictures of April and January 2016 and 2019 of the studied area, and we calculated the NDVI and NDSI indices for the correlation between them, and the area and correlation between the two were evaluated. The results showed that in land classification, the relationship between snow and vegetation is the most important, and the correlation and area between the two indicators indicate a strong relationship between these two indicators. Also, the kappa coefficient obtained for 2016 was 0.96 and 0.99 and for 2019 was 0.98 and 0.98 respectively.

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