Interrelation between snow cover depth and spring flooding in Northern Kazakhstan
О взаимосвязи между количеством снега и объёмом весеннего половодья в Северном Казахстане
Terekhov A.G. Abayev N.N. Tillakarim T.A. Serikbay N.T.
2023Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Sovremennye Problemy Distantsionnogo Zondirovaniya Zemli iz Kosmosa
2023#20Issue 1323 - 328 pp.
A greater volume of spring flooding in the steppe zone of Northern Kazakhstan poses a threat of significant economic losses, which causes high practical interest in a better understanding of the mechanisms of flood formation. The volume of spring flooding in the steppe zone of Kazakhstan is controlled by two factors: the snow water equivalent of precipitation accumulated during the cold period and the soil absorbency during the period of active snowmelt. The interannual variability of the snow amount in Northern Kazakhstan is about 10 times, which significantly loses to the variability of the spring flooding volume, which reaches 150 times. Thus, the soil absorbing capacity plays a key role in the formation of the spring flood in Northern Kazakhstan. This territorial feature is associated with a relatively small annual climatic norm of precipitation (less than 500 mm) and significant winter soil freezing, reaching 120–150 cm or more. The snow cover prevents the soil freezing. This research examined the relationship between the snow depth on February 1 during 2001–2021 in the basins of four Northern Kazakhstan rivers, Tobol, Yesil, Sherubai-Nura, Nura, and the volumes of their spring floods. As initial data, the following were used: the average snow depth in river basins derived by the Snow Depth FEWS NET algorithm and the volume of spring flooding registered at the Kazhydromet stations. The results of the research allow us to conclude that the volume of spring flooding in Northern Kazakhstan, in general, does not depend on snow depth. However, when considering the 21 most low-snow regimes, there is a pronounced inverse relationship between the snow depth in the river basin and the volume of spring flooding. Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient between average snow depth in the river basins and spring flood volumes was r = –0.484; the value of F-test F = 5.81 (F = 2.93; α = 0.01). Thus, under conditions of low-snow winters with an average snow depth of less than 19 cm on February 1, the snow depth is a weather factor that has a close correlation with the volumes of the April spring flood.
river basin , snow depth , soil freezing , spring flood , steppe zone of Kazakhstan
Text of the article Перейти на текст статьи
Institute of Information and Computational Technologies, Almaty, 050010, Kazakhstan
RSE Kazhydromet, Almaty, 050022, Kazakhstan
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, 050040, Kazakhstan
Institute of Information and Computational Technologies
RSE Kazhydromet
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель
Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026