Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Snow Cover in the Kunmalike River Basin

Snow cover plays an important role in alpine mountain rivers. Because of a low population density, expensive access, and limited human activity, alpine regions have a sparse and extremely unevenly distributed hydrometeorological network. The investigation of snowmelt hydrological processes, especially runoff generation, are now highly important and urgent. We used MODIS 8d snow cover data from 2001 to 2010 to analyze spatial and temporal variation in snow cover for the Kunmalike River basin. We looked at the entire territory, slope, aspect and different altitudes. We found that maximum snow cover is in January and minimum snow cover is in August. The snow coverage rate in January is 72.4% and in August is 30.2%. Winter snow cover occupied the highest proportion (ratio is 32.1%), and spring, fall and summer followed with ratios of 26.7%, 26.3% and 14.9% , respectively. The maximum snow cover rate occurred in winter and over the northeast slope where the aspect is 22.5~67.5° , the proportion is 77.9% . Minimum snow cover occurred in summer and over the southern slope where the aspect is 157.5~202.5°; the proportion is 28.3%. While there are some differences in snow cover, the maximum snow cover rate occurred in areas with a slope 60° and the maximum value occurred in spring; the proportion is 82.2% . Minimum snow cover occurred on slopes from 0 ~ 10°, and the minimum value was in summer; the proportion is 29.9%. Minimum snow cover occurred in areas less than 2000 m a.s.l. and maximum snow cover occurred 5000 m a.s.l.