Understanding and Predicting the Spatial and Temporal Variability of Snow Processes Under Different Vegetation Covers Combining Laser Observations and Point Measurements SPENSER -> Snow Processes vEgetatioN laSer obsERvation

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Alexander Reiterer; Professor Dr. Markus Weiler
• Subject Area: Hydrogeology, Hydrology, Limnology, Urban Water Management, Water Chemistry, Integrated Water Resources Management
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 443637229

A comprehensive knowledge about vegetation and forest structures influences on snow accumulation and ablation processes is especially important since forest covers are one of the most rapidly changing land cover types. Furthermore, changing climatic conditions will also result in expanding forest and shrub areas above timber line and hence changing the properties of forest canopies. Recent studies confirmed the high spatial and temporal variability present in the snow cover and the energy balance terms under forest vegetation dependent on various canopy conditions, tree species and climate conditions. The proposed study will focus on examining the effects of different tree species and different forest structures on the snow cover dynamics. An innovative observation approach that combines numerous continuous point measurements (SnoMoS) with frequent UAV (drone) based dual wavelength laser scanning observations will be used to observe the snow cover evolution under forest and shrub canopies in two different climate regions (alpine and mid elevation mountains). The unique dataset will be used to improve existing snow models and to test new vegetation algorithms and to derive robust vegetation structure indices from large-scale datasets to be used in large-scale models. The proposed study will therefore help to fill an important gap of knowledge about forest effects on snow covers that still exists in this field especially for the temperate climate regions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Manfred Stähli