Remote Sensing Tools for Snow and Avalanche Research

Since the first images acquired from airplanes (1915) and satellites (1960), remote sensing has had a great impact in diverse number of fields such as meteorology, military, topographic mapping, archaeology and forestry. Today remote sensing has even become a common tool for the general public, with location searches using high spatial resolution (< 1m) imagery on GoogleEarth or Bing Maps. The advantages are clear, remote sensing instruments can cover large spatially continuous areas without touching the ground. This is especially important for high-alpine terrain due to restricted accessibility. However, the application of remote sensing instruments in snow and avalanche research is limited. Important reasons for this might have been the low spatial and temporal resolution of past technology as well as the high costs for satellite imagery, which may have hindered successful and economic applications. However, with advancing sensor technology capable of acquiring data with 12bit radiometric resolution and very high spatial resolution, such limitations are being addressed. Today, more than a dozen civil satellite sensors are operational, which are capable of acquiring data with a spatial resolution better than 5m as well as many airborne sensors with comparable characteristics. This paper presents an overview of the promising remote sensing applications for snow and avalanche research which apply the currentsensor technology. We discuss potential applications such as digital elevation model DEM generation, avalanche detection, snow depth and snow type mapping, give a short overview past research in this field and show preliminary results from current projects at the SLF.