Evaluation of changes in snow-covered days in the elevation groups over Zayanderoud River Basin

The aim of this study is to examine the changes of snow-covered days in the elevation levels of Zayanderoud River Basin. The MODIS Terra and MODIS Aqua data were applied in the resolution of 500 × 500 m in the daily time scale from 2003 to 2014. A Digital Elevation Model of the Basin that was the same as snow data both in spatial resolution and projection system was extracted over the Basin. To explore the trend for snow-covered days for each of the elevation levels, first the frequency of snow-covered days was calculated over each of the elevations from 1500 to 3850 meters at the intervals of 50 meter and then the trend was examined using Mann-Kendall trend test. The investigations showed that in April and May the number of snow-covered days indicates a decreasing tendency in the high elevation levels of the Basin. In the months of November and December, the number of snow-covered days has shown a positive tendency over many of the elevation levels. The examinations of changes in precipitation regimes show that the shares of precipitation in the fall months have increased while the shares of winter months have decreased. It seems that the variation of precipitation shares have influenced the snow cover regime of the Basin, and snow cover decreasing trend accompanied by changes in the regime could have adverse effects for the Basin.