Spatio-temporal snow cover change in the early twenty-first century using improved MODIS dataset: a case study of District Hunza, Pakistan

Climate change has a massive influence on cryosphere around the globe, particularly in the Hindukush, Karakoram, and Himalayan (HKH) region which is jeopardizing water resources of the region. Thus, keeping this problem in mind the study was conducted using improved MODIS snow cover product for District Hunza to extract snow cover area (SCA) from 2003 to 2018. ASTER GDEM data was utilized to correlate the topographic parameters (elevation, slope, and aspect) with SCA. Mean monthly and annual rainfall and temperature data were acquired from climate research unit (CRU) to examine the impact of climate change on SCA. The results indicated that District Hunza has a declining trend of SCA on a monthly and annual time scale because mean monthly and annual temperature is increasing with a rate of 0.31 °C and 0.10 °C, respectively while precipitation is decreasing with a rate of − 2.90 mm/month and − 5.73 mm/year. High seasonal variability has been observed in SCA due to variations in temperature and precipitation. Maximum snow cover area is observed in elevation zone 3–zone 5 in accumulation period while in depletion period maximum SCA is observed in zone 4 and zone 5. The highest snow cover area was observed in slope zone 3 and zone 4 while Northeast and North facing slope aspect has also maximum amount of snow. Monthly, annual, and seasonal SCA has been correlated with climatic parameters and strong relationship has been observed between them. The conclusion can be drawn from this study that increasing temperature and decreasing precipitation are contributing to SCA melting, which can cause flood and water scarcity in downstream regions.