Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

The Snow Hydrology Measurement System will provide several new devices to measure snow on the ground and then deploy them in a mountain research basin to test hydrological models with snowpack, weather and streamflow measurments. The first device is a sensor that uses sound waves to measure the snowpack depth and density so that the water resources potential of the snowpack may be assessed without disturbing the snowpack. This device will be in a portable version for snow surveying of remote mountain watersheds and a stationary version to supplement measurements at weather stations. It will greatly improve the ease and speed of snow surveying and provide new information on snowpacks in remote locations. The second device is an optical tomography unit that will scan the snowpack using diffracted light much like medical imaging systems scan the skin. It will be able to measure snow crystal shape, snowpack wetness and also the shapes of the pore spaces between snow crystals in three dimensions. This will help to estimate how quickly water, heat and air move through snow. The third device will use a combination of electrical signals, heat conductance and air movement to determine the density, wetness, permeability and thermal conductivity of snowpacks, but will disturb the snowpack. This will be used to test the first two devices that do not disturb the snow. These three new snow measurement devices will provide an unprecedented ability to observe the changes in a snowpack during accumulation and melt and will help to improve water resources prediction models. To ensure that there is improvement to water resources prediction in mountain basins, streamflow will also be measured and compared to predictions from computer models. The system should also help in better understanding snow for many purposes including recreation, avalanche control, farming and climate change.