The SnowToWater project has developed an innovative procedure to monitor SWE (Snow Water Equivalent) across the Alps. The SWE is a parameter for quantifying the water equivalent contained in the snow layer on the ground and made available by melting. It is an important water reserve, stored in the winter seasons and made available with a certain delay in the dry season. Monitoring the availability of this resource is a strategic factor for various human activities such as drinking water use, agriculture and power generation. Due to climate change, drought periods are becoming more frequent and prolonged and affect areas that typically did not suffer such problems. Accurate knowledge of SWE consequently becomes crucial for proper management of aquifer resources. SnowToWater therefore aims to offer a service for large areas for the high-precision and high-resolution calculation of SWE with a temporal resolution of up to 1h. The service is based on the Cima Foundation’s cryospheric hydrological model S3M (Snow Multidata Mapping and Modeling). The model uses different data sources in order to diversify the inputs and limit calculation drift due to the natural uncertainty of the data provided. The main data sources assimilated are:
The strength of the model is the possibility of integrating data from different sources at different temporal resolution and from different formats. This allows very accurate data to be obtained.
Satellite data and in-situ measurements were processed and refined using appropriate geostatistical processing and artificial intelligence techniques. The system is applicable for both reanalysis applications on conditions occurring with a delay of up to one day and for nowcasting and forecasting applications.
CLIENT: ESA-ENEL
