Determination of Snow Water Equivalent for Dry Snowpacks Using the Multipath Propagation of Ground-Based Radars

Determining snow water equivalent (SWE) in a fast and nondestructive way is key request for many hydrologists scientists. To this aim, microwave ground-based radars represent viable solution, but often the simultaneous measurement of both snowpack depth density (the ingredients SWE) very complex, inaccurate, or requires difficult procedures equipment. This letter presents novel radar technique self-standing calculation SWE that can be applied to bi-static radars. technique, based on multipath propagation signal into snowpack, only with two fixed antennas, without any other device, movement priori empirical assumptions. makes such particularly suitable light portable rapidly probing large areas, providing, example, an innovative validation means satellite-based remote sensing methods. The proposed was demonstrated using stepped frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) field conditions dry snow, delivering results SWE, benchmarked by manual analyses mean absolute error better than 5 cm.