Fractional Snow/Non-Snow Cover Mapping through Incorporation of Thermal Band in Snow Index Design

Abstract

Substantial development has been achieved in snow cover delineations through binary mapping techniques. Continuous efforts for development and institution of methodologies in fractional snow cover mapping are steadily conducted by the research communities. In this work, the attempts are driven towards the attainment of the same. MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) images are worked upon Landsat 8 images under multivariate polynomial regression schemes utilizing corresponding count of pixels in a test region of Himachal Pradesh. 11.00 μm centered waveband is employed to develop a scheme for snow mapping followed by a qualitative and quantitative comparison with NDSI and S3 snow index where the values of correlation coefficient between fractional snow cover and index values have been obtained as 77.04%, 78.82% and 85.15% for NDSI, S3 and our scheme respectively. Exponential empirical relationships have been tried to be employed to attain improvements in prediction of snow cover followed by a test of correlation between true and theoretical fractional snow cover values. An improvement in degree of correlation is obtained over the conventional methodologies which serves for the verification of scheme employed and empirical relationship defined, collectively. The results provide a scope for improvements and investigations in the subject of fractional snow cover mapping.