Advances in applications of MODIS to hydrology and water resources

MODIS(MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) is the newest generation of remote sensing techniques.Compared with the data obtained from other single remote sensing platforms such as NOAA and LandSat,the MODIS data have many advantages,for example,it is free and has higher temporal resolution(0.5 day),spatial resolution(250 m) and spectral resolution(36 spectral channels,ranging between 0.4 and 14 Lm).For the moment,the application of MODIS in hydrology and water resources is just at the beginning.This paper summarized the applications of the MODIS data in different aspects of hydrology and water resources,such as flood disaster monitoring,glacier or snow distribution,precipitation estimation,vegetation changes survey,soil moisture simulation,evapotranspiration calculation,hydrological modeling,and water quality control.It is expected that MODIS would be a very powerful tool for researches and applications in hydrology and water resources.