HMAGLOFDB v1.0 – a comprehensive and version controlled database of glacier lake outburst floods in high mountain Asia

Abstract

Abstract. Glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) have been intensely investigated in High Mountain Asia (HMA) in recent years and are the most well-known hazard associated with the cryosphere. As glaciers recede and surrounding slopes become increasingly unstable, such events are expected to increase, although current evidence for an increase in events is ambiguous. Many studies have investigated individual events and while several regional inventories exist, they either do not cover all types of GLOF or are geographically constrained. Further, downstream impacts are rarely discussed. Previous inventories have relied on academic sources and have not been combined with existing inventories of glaciers and lakes. In this study, we present the first comprehensive inventory of GLOFs in HMA, including details on the time of their occurrence, processes of lake formation and drainage involved as well as downstream impacts. We document 682 individual GLOFs that occurred between 1833 and 2022. Of these, 20 % were recurring events from just three ephemeral ice-dammed lakes. In combination, the documented events resulted in 6907 fatalities, with 6000 of these linked to a single GLOF, three times higher than a previous assessment for the region. The integration of previous inventories of glaciers and lakes within this database will inform future assessments of potential drivers of GLOFs, allowing more robust projections to be developed. The database and future, updated versions, are traceable, version controlled and can be directly incorporated into further analysis.

Shaking up Assumptions: Earthquakes Have Rarely Triggered Andean Glacier Lake Outburst Floods

“…None of this implies that a future earthquake could not trigger a catastrophic GLOF, but the data clearly indicates that, in the region and timeframe of study, large earthquakes rarely ever trigger any GLOFs. This supports research focused on smaller regions, such as the case of the M7.8 2015 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal (Kargel et al., 2016) and more recent database for High Mountain Asia (Shrestha et al., 2023). A notorious exception is the 1970 Perú earthquake (Emmer, 2017; Emmer et al., 2020, 2022b; Hubbard et al., 2005; Lliboutry et al., 1977; Zapata, 2002), which we consider in the next section.…”

Shaking up assumptions: Earthquakes have rarely triggered Andean Glacier Lake Outburst Floods

“…None of this implies that a future earthquake could not trigger a catastrophic GLOF, but the data clearly indicates that, in the region and timeframe of study, large earthquakes rarely ever trigger any GLOFs. This supports research focused on smaller regions, such as the case of the M7.8 2015 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal (Kargel et al, 2016) and more recent database for High Mountain Asia (Shrestha et al, 2023). A notorious exception is the 1970 Perú earthquake (Lliboutry et al, 1977;Zapata, 2002;Hubbard et al, 2005;Emmer, 2017;Emmer et al, 2020;2022b), which we consider in the next section.…”

Review article: Snow and ice avalanches in high mountain Asia – scientific, local and indigenous knowledge

“…Information from the internet was verified by cross-checking with multiple other websites and reports. The information gathered likely doesn't include all events due to generally poor documentation of hazard events in the region (Emmer et al, 2022;Shrestha et al, in and Acharya, 2022). We record events that affected high altitude climbers (at peaks above 4500 m a.s.l.)…”