Application of the Snowmelt Runoff Model: Remote Sensing Techniques, Input Data Preparation & Results for the Indus Basin in Northern Pakistan

by Muhammad Bilal, Max P. Bleiweiss, Muhammad Imran Shahzad

The Snowmelt Runoff Model (SRM) was first developed and used in 1973 by Dr. J. Martinec, at the Swiss Snow and Avalanche Research Institute. The SRM is written in FORTRAN and it has been modified for use on a microcomputer by the US Department of Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville, MD. The model has been applied by various agencies, institutes and universities in over 100 basins, situated in 29 different countries. It was applied in Pakistan on the Kabul River, River Swat Upper Basin and Besham Qila in the Upper Indus Basin (UIB) in 1975, 2008 and 2009, respectively. In the study reported here, SRM is applied in the UIB on the Astore River in Northern Pakistan for the snowmelt seasons during the years 2000-2006. The average value of the Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) for all of the SRM runoff simulations for the Astore River is 0.87 which is among the highest achieved for SRM for all reports to date.

92 pages, Paperback

Published February 27, 2011