Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2019, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 298-302
Influence of the Kapshagay Reservoir (China) refill on transboundary River Ile runoff and satellite-based forecasting
A.G. Terekhov
1, 2 , A.A. Pak
1 1 Institute of Information and Computing Technologies, Ministry of Education and Science, Almaty, Kazakhstan
2 RSE Kazhydromet, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Accepted: 24.08.2019
DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2019-16-4-298-302
This report is about the forecast of the phenomena of unexpected sharp water scarcity in the transboundary (China-Kazakhstan) River Ile during 1–2 months caused by water management in the upper, China’s part of the river basin. The snow/glacial-fed River Ile has a stream length of about 1439 km and collects water in Tien-Shan ranges. At the China-Kazakhstan boundary the annual river runoff varies between 10–20 km3 under weather conditions. The Kapshagay Reservoir, with working volume equal 1.4 km3, was built in China’s sector of River Ile basin in 2006. In case of river water deficit, the calendar dates of the seasonal reservoir refill are forced to shift to the end of summer, which causes sharp anthropogenic water scarcity. By the dates of reservoir refill, the 2009–2018 period is divided into two groups: early summer (2009–2011, 2015–2017) and late summer (2012–2014, 2018). The River Ile runoff depends on snow accumulation in its basin. The 3-month forecast of the dates of seasonal reservoir refill was based on three parameters of the snow cover of the China’s sector of River Ile basin. They are: 1) season maximum of snow depth; 2) average snow depth during the period from January 1 to April 30; 3) snow water equivalent anomaly on May 1 (relative estimates). The composite condition index, with the scale 0–50–100, where 0 is the multi-year minimum; 50 is median; 100 is multi-year maximum, was used for relative estimation. The snow cover of the China’s sector of River Ile basin was characterized by satellite products Snow Depth and Snow Water Equivalent Anomaly from FEWS NET USGS/EROS (Noah 3.6 SWE Model). The season maximum of the snow depth ranged as follows: minimum 0,285 m, maximum 0,330 m for late summer regimes of reservoir refill; and minimum 0,328 m, maximum 0,449 m for early summer ones. The average snow depth, respectively: 0,200–0,219/0,230–0,327 m; snow water equivalent anomaly: 0–35.6/32.2–100 units. These differences were used to forecast the calendar dates of the Kapshagay Reservoir refill. The 2019 characteristics were: seasonal maximum of snow depth 0.384 m; average is 0.246 m; snow water equivalent anomaly 51,5 units. Thus, in August – September 2019 an early summer reservoir refill without anthropogenic river water scarcity is expected.
Keywords: transboundary River Ile, China’s sector of River Ile basin, remote sensing, satellite products FEWS NET USGS/EROS, snow cover, snow depth, snow water equivalent anomaly, seasonal reservoir refill, calendar dates of reservoir refill, forecast of the calendar dates of reservoir refill
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