Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2016, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 273-276
Satellite observations of the anomalous spring flood at the lower reach of the Ayaguz River in 2016
A.G. Terekhov
1 , I.T. Park
1 , S.A. Golgikh
2 1 Institute of Information and Computing Technologies, Ministry of Education and Science, Almaty, Kazakhstan
2 RSB Kazhydromet, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Accepted: 28.08.2016
DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2016-13-18-273-276
The paper examines activity of April flood at the lower reach of the Ayaguz River (central Kazakhstan) where it falls into Eastern part of the large shallow Balkhash Lake (water surface is approximately 20,000 km2). There are no hydrological observation stations in this under populated, semiarid area of central Kazakhstan, and satellite data is the only regular source of information about the territory condition. Data of Landsat satellite for the period from 1996 to 2016 was used to examine the scale of spring flood of the area. The area of 900 km2 was flooded on April 24th, 2016. The flood continued for 20–30 days, the volume of flood water is estimated to be 500 mln m3, which exceeds 2 times the average annual river flow of Ayaguz at its middle reaches. The data of TERRA\MOD35 DAY product (daily cloud mask) was used to analyze cloud cover of the region in April during the period of 2000–2016. A stable trend of low cloud cover in recent years is observed. Starting from 2012, cloud cover of April in Kazakhstan is distinguished by little cloudness. Such weather conditions create favorable conditions for formation of active spring flood events at temporary water streams and small rivers of central Kazakhstan. From the perspective of recharging inland water reservoirs, including one of the biggest of the kind – Balkhash Lake, this spring weather peculiarity is advantageous for more efficient accumulation of snowmelt water, which is one of the most significant component for continental water flow of the region.
Keywords: remote sensing data, spring floods, flooded area, cloud cover, cloud mask
Full textReferences:
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