1. State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, P. R. China
2. State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, P. R. China

This study simulated and predicted the runoff of the Aksu River Basin, a typical river basin supplied by snowmelt in an arid mountain region, with a limited data set and few hydrological and meteorological stations. Two hydrological models, the snowmelt-runoff model (SRM) and the Danish NedbØr-AfstrØmnings rainfall-runoff model (NAM), were used to simulate daily discharge processes in the Aksu River Basin. This study used the snow-covered area from MODIS remote sensing data as the SRM input. With the help of ArcGIS software, this study successfully derived the digital drainage network and elevation zones of the basin from digital elevation data. The simulation results showed that the SRM based on MODIS data was more accurate than NAM. This demonstrates that the application of remote sensing data to hydrological snowmelt models is a feasible and effective approach to runoff simulation and prediction in arid unguaged basins where snowmelt is a major runoff factor