Multi-source remote sensing supported large scale fully distributed hydrological modelling of the tarim river basin in central asia

Potential application of remote sensing in hydrology is one of the hot spots in the distributed hydrological model research. The remote sensing technology can be applied to obtain the spatial distribution and dynamics of hydrological phenomena which is not generally possible based on traditional data. In this paper, a fully distributed large scale hydrological modeling application is considered in the semi-arid area of the River Tarim basin in central Asia (area of more than 1.20×105 km2). The model has been built based on the hydrological modeling software MIKE-SHE, which makes combined use of ground station data and multi-source and multi-temporal remote sensing data. Input and output data of spatially and temporally detailed variable model have been obtained by remote sensing data processing and geographical* spatial analysis for many useful hydrologic variables. These variables include digital elevations, land uses, soil types, precipitation intensities, evapotranspiration depths, snow cover heights and areas and leaf area index information. Through the case study application, insights have been obtained in the advantage of the potential usage of the remote sensing technology and products to support the hydrological process modeling of large scale river basins in developing countries where traditional station based data is very limited. The technology developed and the experience built in this study can be exported for applications in other analogical regions. © 2009 SPIE. (32 refs.