Prevalent risk of glacial lake outburst flood hazard in the Hindu Kush–Karakoram–Himalaya region of Pakistan

Steiner

et al. 2023

Preprint

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.

Section: Statistics Of Lakes With and Lakes Without Glofsmentioning

confidence: 98%

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

Steiner

et al. 2023

Preprint

“…The current glacier response to global warming in this area is a combination of ice thinning and rapid ice advance, leading to an increase in glacier surges (Bazai et al, 2021). As surge events lead to a higher probability of glacial lakes forming behind unstable ice dams (Hewitt and Liu, 2010), GLOF are among the predominant natural hazards in this region (Ashraf et al, 2021). The high number of future proglacial lakes (see also Figure 5) underscores this as a progressive trend.…”

Section: Northern and Northwestern Regionsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Projected 21st-Century Glacial Lake Evolution in High Mountain Asia

2022

In High Mountain Asia (HMA), rising temperatures and retreating glaciers are leading to the formation of new glacial lakes and the expansion of existing ones. The sudden release of water from such lakes can lead to devastating glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF) threatening people and infrastructure for many kilometers downstream. Therefore, information on future glacial lakes, e.g., their location, area and volume as well as the timing of their development, is vital for sustainable development of settlements and infrastructures. In this study, we present comprehensive estimates for future glacial lake development in HMA with unprecedented temporal resolution. We rely on an ensemble of fifteen global climate models using the newest CMIP6 data and employ a set of four Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios. With the Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM), we use a modeling framework that explicitly simulates glacier dynamics in order to model glacier change until 2100 and estimate the formation period for each of the 2,700 largest future glacial lakes (>0.1 km2) in HMA. We estimate the glacial lake area in the entire region to grow by 474 ± 121 km2 for SSP126 and 833 ± 148 km2 for SSP585. Following recent estimates of currently existing glacial lakes (>0.1 km2), this would constitute an increase in lake area of ∼120–∼210% in 2100 compared to 2018. The lake volume is expected to increase by 22.8 ± 6.7 km3 for SSP126 and 39.7 ± 7.7 km3 for SSP585. This range includes a drastic tenfold increase in lake volume, from estimated 3.9 km3 in 2018 to 43.6 ± 7.7 km3 in 2100. However, there is a considerable spread between total and relative increase in glacial lake area and volume for different sub-regions of High Mountain Asia. As both, lake area and lake volume, could to lead to an increase in GLOF risk, the results emphasize the urgent need for more localized, in-depth studies at especially vulnerable locations in order to enable local communities to adapt to emerging challenges, to implement risk minimization measures, and to improve sustainable development in High Mountain Asia.

Journal of Vacation Marketing

“…Gilgit-Baltistan, a famous tourist destination in Pakistan (Hussain et al, 2018;Blood, 2008), is the home of the world's three highest mountain ranges (i.e., the Hindu Kush, Himalayas and Karakoram) (Ashraf et al, 2021). The British Backpacker Society ranks Gilgit-Baltistan as one of the top four destinations in the South Asia region and declares it among the "top-twenty adventure destinations" worth visiting (Baig and Hussain, 2020).…”

Section: Research Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Only a few studies have measured destination awareness as a metric of CBBE via company-generated social media communications (Godey et al, 2016; Pike and Bianchi, 2016). Social media platforms offer countless opportunities for firms to develop relationships with social networking communities (Ekici Cilkin and Cizel, 2021), resulting in an influence of such platforms on CBBE.…”

Section: Study Framework and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring tourism-generated social media communication, brand equity, satisfaction, and loyalty: A PLS-SEM-based multi-sequential approach

Abbasi

Rather²,

Ting

et al. 2022

Although social media-based brand equity has become a vital area of interest for brand managers, insights into its destination-based dynamics and applications remain scarce, specifically in the destination brand context. To address this gap, we develop and test a theoretical model to investigate the role of destination marketing organization-generated and tourist-generated social media communication to determine the brand awareness and brand image of the Gilgit-Baltistan region, which in turn influence customer-based brand equity (CBBE) (i.e. perceived quality), satisfaction, and loyalty. Data come from well-known tourist sites in Gilgit-Baltistan. Using the multi-sequential approach in WarpPLS 7.0, findings shows that the social media communication dimensions show differential impacts on brand awareness as a metric of CBBE. Second, destination awareness demonstrates a differential impact on perceived destination image dimensions. Third, the destination image dimensions exert different effects on the perceived quality of the destination. Fourth, perceived quality positively influences satisfaction, which in turn enhances loyalty. We offer important implications that emerged from the analyzes and also suggest directions for future research.