Dinámica del manto de nieve en una pequeña cuenca de montaña mediterránea: el caso del río Tormes (Cuenca del Duero, España)

Abstract

Recently, a homogeneous database has been generated to study the spatial-temporal dynamics of the snow cover in the Spanish peninsular territory, from remote sensing (AVHRR-NOAA and MODIS) and energy balance models (WRF-FSM). These data series used at regional scale show the uncertainty of their application in small headwaters to better understand the hydro-climatology of the same. Assuming the disparity of applied techniques, and the diversity of variables in which the estimates are expressed (snow cover, snow days, snow depth and snow water equivalent), the results obtained allow to describe the seasonal behavior of the snow cover in the study catchment, as well as its marked interannual variability. The results show that snow cover data are less useful for hydrological analysis than modeled series (WRF-FSM), which report the thickness and amount of snow water equivalent.