Vicarious calibration for remotely sensed hydro power water resource

As part of the natural resource management (NRM) the exploitation and assessment of water resources from melted snow, the snow water equivalent (SWE) for hydro power generation can proceed only by remote sensing. The evaluation algorithm EQeau is already introduced for this assessment. This connects the remotely data to the SWE exploiting the seasonal thermal resistance change of the soil and snow cover. On the other hand this technique needs representative vicarious ground calibrations, especially that of the snow density. At this end the devices used for the ground truth measurements are too small in comparison with a remote sensing pixel size and are not suitable for continous monitoring. The new method and device senses a more than 50 times larger measuring volume than the usual ones, its linear extension can be compared by a pixel side. The sensor is an unshielded flat band cable which will be embedded by snow fall and remains and measures there during the entire winter season. With time domain reflectometry (TDR) and low frequency measurements on this long sensor one can determine the density, the most important input for the calibration of the remotely sensed data. The method contributes to a better prognoses for avalanche and flood warning as well, because it measures the snow liquid water content also. The method and instrument are installed in four consecutive winter seasons.