Abstract. Shallow snowpack conditions, which occur throughout the year in many regions as well as during accumulation and ablation periods in all regions, are important in water resources, agriculture, ecosystems, and winter recreation. Terrestrial and airborne (manned and unmanned) laser scanning and structure from motion (SfM) techniques have emerged as viable methods to map snow depths. Lidar on an unmanned aerial vehicle is also a potential method to observe field and slope scale variations of shallow snowpacks. This paper describes an unmanned aerial lidar system, which uses commercially available components, for snow depth mapping on the landscape scale. The system was assessed in a mixed deciduous and coniferous forest and open field for a shallow snowpack (
