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Report: Mapping the Snow Sensitive Zone in the Upper Columbia River Basin, Canada
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Describes methods and results from mapping the snow sensitive zone (SSZ) in 57 gauged watersheds in the upper Columbia River basin in Canada. The SSZ is the watershed area contributing snowmelt water during the peak flow of freshet. Relationships were found between SSZ and watershed physical and climatic properties, allowing for estimation of the SSZ in ungauged basins.
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Author: Natasha Neumann
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Date Published: Nov 2023
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Report ID: 62666
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Audience: Government and Public
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he objectives of this study were to estimate the snow sensitive zone (SSZ, the watershed area contributing to snowmelt water during the peak flow) for gauged watersheds in two physiographic regions within the upper Columbia River basin in Canada, and to use the results to develop regression models that use key topographic and climatic variables to predict the lower limit of the SSZ in ungauged basins. The 57 selected watersheds were grouped based on their location within the western Shuswap and Okanagan Highlands and the Thompson Plateau physiographic region, or the eastern Columbia Mountains and Rocky Mountains physiographic region. The analysis indicated that the H60 elevation (the elevation above which 60% of the watershed area lies) was not a conservative approach to estimating the SSZ in most of the study basins. The SSZ was estimated using median and maximum snow covered area (SCA) values for the 2010-2020 period, where the maximum value may provide a more conservative estimate in hydrologically sensitive watersheds. These estimates were used in random forest regressions and correlation analyses to identify the most important predictors from a list of 48 physical and climatic variables that described each basin. These predictor variables were then used to derive linear regression equations to estimate SSZ elevations using both the median and the maximum SCAs. The linear regression equations explained 65-74% of the variability in the SSZ elevations, with residual standard errors of 71 to 78 m in the western plateau and 171 to 174 m in the eastern mountainous physiographic regions.
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Report Type
Subject
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Region - Kootenay |
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Watershed Groups - 300 - Columbia |
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Water Information - Flood Protection - Emergency Planning and Response |
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Water Information - Water Management |
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