Florinsky, Igor 
The examples shown in Section 3.2 describe cases of remote sensing studies in large river basins. 
None of these cases cover an international water course, but there is technically no difference in 
determining river basin parameters from space between national or international river basins. The 
satellite data of the examples are all taken from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration — Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (NOAA-AVHRR). This satellite has a 
swath width of 2800 km, has a polar orbit and revisits every area twice during daylight hours. There 
are two satellites operational, NOAA14 and NOAA 15. Future satellite systems with equivalent 
sensors such as demonstrated in Table 1 could be used for these type of applications. 
3.2 Selected examples of quantifying river basin processes using satellite measurements with a 1 
km spatial resolution 
Case 1: Snowmelt and reservoir inflow, Canada 
Kite (1995) developed a distributed watershed model dedicated to make maximum use of remotely 
sensed data. This distributed hydrological model SLURP uses digital elevation data from public 
domain databases accomplished with NOAA-AVHRR images to divide a large watershed into 
simulation units with different land cover classes. The runoff from each simulation unit is routed 
down the watershed and aggregated to simulate streamflow. Daily NOAA-AVHRR data is used to 
classify cloud cover, snow extent and leaf area index. The land cover classes (water, deciduous trees, 
coniferous trees, barren land, perennial snow/ice) could also be successfully obtained from NOAA- 
AVHRR images. Day-to-day simulations of surface runoff into the reservoir could be calculated and 
used for reservoir operations of the upper Columbia watershed. This information is important for 
water availability and water diversion to irrigation systems and hydropower generation. 
Case 2: Soil moisture in space and time, Iran 
Soil moisture is an indication of water stored in the unsaturated zone. Under arid conditions, soil 
moisture patterns are a direction indication of the irrigation water distribution or natural seepage 
zones holding the soil wet. The Zayandeh Rud basin in Central Iran is a basin hosting millions of 
people — the historic city of Esfahan is Iran second largest city and located in the basin — and essential 
for Iran's national food production through water diversions. Access to water is equivalent to 
possibilities for agriculture and establishment of socio-economic development. The soil moisture 
patterns show the inter-annual diversions of irrigation water. Fig. 3A shows the soil moisture fields 
during May when winter crops are almost at the end of their growing period, and Fig. 3B expresses 
the conditions in August when summer crops are fully emerged. Fig. 3 demonstrates that the lower 
part of the basin receives less water and that a minor portion. of the basin has access to huge and 
unlimited water amounts; a soil moisture content of 0.40 cm’ cm” throughout the season reveals that 
the soils are at field capacity or even wetter. Fig. 3 has been determined without any ground 
information. If this basin would have been international, a trained person from an international 
organization and knowledgeable on GIS and remote sensing could have prepared this map. 
  
  
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B7. Amsterdam 2000. 445