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Application of Landsat images to Snow Cover Changes by Volcanic Activities at Mt. Villarrica and Mt. Llaima, Chile

2014; Volume: 30; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.7780/kjrs.2014.30.3.1

2287-9307

Jeong-Cheol Kim, Daehyun Kim, Sung-Hwan Park, Hyung-Sup Jung, Han-Sup Shin,

Urban Heat Island Mitigation

Landsat images can monitor the snow-covered Earth surface variations with the ground resolution of 30m and the multi-spectral bands in the visible, NIR, SWIR and TIR spectral regions for the last 30 years. The Southern Volcanic Zone (SVZ) of Chile consists of many volcanoes, and all of the volcanoes are covered with snow at the top of mountain. Snow cover area in southern province of the SVZ of Chile (37 to $46^{\circ}S$ ) have been influenced by significant frontal retreats as well as eruptive activities. In this study, we have investigated the changes of the snow-cover area and snow-line elevation at Mt. Villarrica and Mt. Llaima, Chile from three Landsat images acquired on Feb. 1990, 2005 and 2011. The snow-cover areas are 13.42, 26.75 and $21.60km^2$ at Mt. Villarrica in 1990, 2005 and 2011, respectively, and 3.82, 25.12 and $8.89km^2$ at Mt. Llaima in 1990, 2005 and 2011, respectively. The snow-line elevations are 1871, 1738 and 1826m at Mt. Villarrica in 1990, 2005 and 2011, respectively, and 2007, 1822 and 1818m at Mt. Llaima in 1990, 2005 and 2011, respectively. The results indicate that both of the snow-cover and snow-line changes are strongly related with the volcanic activity change. The results demonstrate that the snow-cover area and snow-line elevation changes can be used as an indicator of the volcanic activity at Mt. Villarrica and Mt. Llaima, Chile.