We will demonstrate and deploy improved methods of measuring snow water equivalent anotoriously difficult observation to make

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation awarded a $623,849.55 Cooperative Agreement grant to Hydroinnova LLC on February 9, 2024 under the Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program (CFDA 15.078). The 2.5-year project aims to demonstrate and deploy two novel methods for measuring snow water equivalent, a critical parameter for improving water supply forecasts in drought-prone regions of the western U.S. Specifically, Hydroinnova will develop, test, and validate a cosmic ray muon detector and a cosmic ray neutron detector as part of this effort. These compact sensors offer advantages such as easy installation, low environmental impact, and flexibility compared to conventional snow measurement methods. The project also involves creating algorithms to convert sensor data into snow water equivalent measurements and comparing them to alternate monitoring techniques. This award highlights Hydroinnova's expertise in providing innovative environmental monitoring technologies to support federally funded research and operational needs in water resource management.

The work involves two specific variations of the cosmic RAY method that are well suited to measuring large snow water equivalent. These methods are easy to install and maintain, are insensitive to ICE bridging, and are more flexible than conventional methods such as snow pillows and load cells. This flexibility together with the low environmental impact of the equipment should help minimize permitting issues and therefore encourage widespread adoption. We will build, test, install, maintain and validate these two types of novel snow water equivalent sensors as part of a demonstration project. The two primary sensors will be a cosmic RAY muon detector and a cosmic RAY neutron detector. Each will be buried by snow water equivalent and will provide a small footprint estimate of snow water equivalent on top of the sensor. We will develop, refine and provide algorithms for converting the primary response of the sensors to a measure of snow water equivalent, and compare to alternate methods.