Snowmelt Flow Modeling Based on the Modified Penman Monteith Equation

Many factors are participated in the snowmelt process, therefore accurate estimation of it is one of the major challenges in water resources management. Snowmelt runoff prediction provides the necessary tools for effective and efficient management of water resources, including reservoir management, groundwater management and flood warning. In most cases there are little earth-observing information for snow properties which is one of the limitations of snowmelt flow modeling. For this purpose, the modified Penman-Monteith equation using climate data from Lighvan weather station in the East Azarbaijan Province was applied in order to estimate runoff from snowmelt. Two-thirds of data were used for training and the rest one-third for verification of the model. Finally, the modified Penman-Monteith equation with mean correlation coefficients values of 0.89 and 0.85 for training and verification stages, mean average absolute error values of 0.57 and 0.37 m3s1 for training and testing stages, was presented as an appropriate model to estimate the snowmelt flow based on climatic parameters.