Modeling water regime of vast regions utilizing satellite data on land surface characteristics
A physically based land surface model has been developed for simulating water and heat balance components of vast terrains of a regional scale and allowing the use of satellite-derived data on land surface and snow cover characteristics. Specific techniques have been developed to utilize in the model satellite-derived estimates of vegetation and snow cover characteristics. These estimates have been derived with the help of the developed methods of thematic processing measurement data of AVHRR/NOAA, MODIS/EOS Terra and Aqua, AMSR-E/EOS Aqua and SEVIRI/Meteosat-9. The results are presented of modeling vertical water and heat fluxes, soil and snow cover water and heat content, land surface and soil temperatures for 227300 km<sup>2</sup> area of the Central Black Earth zone of the European Russia for the period of 2008-2011.