Montana State University snow and water scientists have received a nearly $1 million dollar grant to pursue new methods of snowpack measurement.
Snowpack measurements are key in forecasting water supply, used for anticipating droughts, floods and managing usage.
Heading the project are Eric Sproles and Briana Whitehead. Sproles is an assistant professor in MSU’s Department of Earth Sciences in the College of Letters and Science. Whitehead is an earth sciences doctoral student with a master’s from MSU’s Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences.
Sproles leads the Geospatial Snow, Water, & Ice Research Lab at MSU and serves as the Director of the Geospatial Core Facility.
Whitehead has worked for USDA/NRCS as a geographic information specialist and soil conservationist in the Bozeman region since 2019 and plans to conduct her doctoral research on the project.
The project is one of 15 similar proposals funded by the federal Bureau of Reclamation with the goal of assessing advanced snow-monitoring technologies for water supply forecasting.
Scientists at Syracuse University and the University of Texas are partners in the grant and will assist with collecting and analyzing the data.
Over three years, Sproles and Whitehead will test emerging sensor technologies that measure snow water using gamma and cosmic rays — naturally occurring energy sources that are muffled or reduced by snowpack — at Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest, near White Sulphur Springs.
The team has already placed a permanently mounted cosmic ray sensor in the forest to transit real-time data, alongside pre-existing stream gages transmitting snowmelt runoff data from the streams.
The previous technology for measuring snowpack at SNOTEL sites, uses the pressure buildup on top of antifreeze-filled bladders known as “snow pillows” to record and transmit data via telemetry.
Snow pillows measure square feet whereas the cosmic ray sensor measure around 22 acres, giving a better representation at hourly intervals, Sproles said.
“We will compare the snow-pillow method with these new approaches to see if and how much we improve streamflow predictions,” Sproles said. “We’ll see which is better, and how much water is coming out at the end.”
MSU’s grant funded project does not seek to replace any existing methods. Sproles said snow pillows continue to provide meaningful water resource data.
“We’re trying to improve SNOTEL, not replace it,” Whitehead said.
Another benefit of the new technologies being tested by the MSU team is the ability to access higher elevations more easily. This will be useful as average snowpack elevations are rising under current climate trends, said Sproles.
The technology utilized in this project has typically been used to look at soil moisture. Sproles said they are going to be testing just how far they can push it with regards to snow-water.
The US Forest Service and the National Resource Conservation Service has been measuring snowpack in the Western US since the 1960s, using a standard format that has thus far worked well, he said.
Now, he said, they are trying out the new methods and technologies that have come to market to understand exactly what they are measuring, and more importantly what they are not measuring to make recommendations to the Bureau of Reclamation. The agency can then augment or increase the existing snowpack monitoring network.
The goal of the project, Sproles said, is to reduce the current uncertainty regarding precisely how much water is available, something that has been “okay” in the past. What has worked previously might not be as effective in the future, he said.
“If you aren’t improving, you’re just getting left behind,” said Sproles.
Between existing and new methods, Sproles said they will have a much better capacity to measure snowpack across the Western U.S.
Although, it remains to be seen whether more accurate information will impact management or behavioral decisions, he said.
As demand for water has grown in the West and supply begins to vary increasingly year-to-year, the importance of precision in measuring it has become even more important, Sproles said.
“An increase in demand coupled with variability is what gives water resource managers gray hairs,” Sproles said.
He said it is a “collective reality” that we will need to make decisions regarding water down the road, perhaps soon, that we have not had to in the past.
“It’s not ranchers, it’s not cities. It’s ranchers, cities, industry, everything all together. We’re all part of the same equation. We’re all components of the same equation and it’s important that we work together to find solutions instead of saying ‘I need my water. You don’t need yours. Mine’s more important,’” he said. “We as a, as a functioning society are going to have to really work together to address it, but I think we can. We just have to make it more about us and less about me.”
Let the news come to you
Get any of our free daily email newsletters — news headlines, opinion, e-edition, obituaries and more.
Send us your thoughts and feedback as a letter to the editor. Submit by email, by post to 2820 W. College St., Bozeman, MT 59718 or use our online form.
Support quality local journalism. Become a subscriber.
Subscribers get full, survey-free access to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle's award-winning coverage both on our website and in our e-edition, a digital replica of the print edition.
