Comparative analysis of various satellite products through hydrological modeling

Majority of runoff is composed of snowmelt in the eastern part of Turkey, especially in mountainous areas. Monitoring of spatial and temporal change of snow covered area is difficult in hydrological and forecasting studies for such areas and the ground observation data are collected at a point and represent nearby area. Thus, satellites are preferred to follow the change in snow extent by taking of their spatial and temporal resolutions into consideration. In this study, it is aimed to validate commonly used MODIS, MSG-SEVIRI and IMS satellite snow products against the data obtained from 50 ground observation stations in the eastern part of Turkey. However, the optic satellites are affected by cloudiness and different filtering techniques are applied to remove cloud cover. Validation analysis is applied to all steps of filtering and satellite data are compared depending on spatial and temporal resolutions. The stations are classified according to features for better comparative analysis of satellite data and ground observation data. Snow covered area graphics are determined using these three satellite data for Karasu and Murat Basins selected as study areas. Snowmelt Runoff Model is used for hydrological modeling of basins since it takes snow covered area ratio in addition to precipitation and temperature as input. Impact studies of snow cover area derived by different satellites through conceptual hydrological model are interpreted. Furthermore, both hydrological model validation and runoff forecasting studies are applied with parameter sets determined in the calibration period. Deterministic Numerical Weather Prediction data are used for short-term (up until 2 days) runoff forecasting. As a result, a study including the satellite product validation, hydrological modeling and operational use in water resources management is applied.