Snow cover mapping by using Optical and SAR data

in many regions of the globe an update knowledge of the snow cover extent and wetness is of primary importance for both scientific and application aspects. Indeed, snow plays a major role in the global water cycle and the climate system, as well as in natural disasters such as floods, landslides. An operational algorithm to produce snow cover maps from remote sensing data in the Italian Alps has been implemented in the framework of the Italian national project PROSA to contribute timely information to civil protection from floods and landslides. The algorithm can generate maps in presence of cloud cover by combining optical data from MODIS and SAR data from ENVISAT. It has been validated on a wide area in North Italy by comparing the algorithm output with ground measurements. © 2009 SPIE.