Regional morphodynamics of supraglacial lakes in the Everest Himalaya

Mohanty, Litan; Maiti, Sabyasachi

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141586

Cited by 12 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…This classification method emphasizes the connections between lakes and glaciers, facilitating the analysis of glacial lake dynamics within the context of glacial changes, compared to categorizing them based on the dam materials. Supraglacial lakes are typically small, exhibit significant fluctuations within and between years, and frequently appear and disappear 53 , 54 . In comparison, numerous, occasionally concealed supraglacial lakes are another cause of the discrepancies in glacial lake datasets 47 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhanced glacial lake activity threatens numerous communities and infrastructure in the Third Pole

Zhang,

Wang,

et al. 2023

Nat Commun

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Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are among the most severe cryospheric hazards in the Third Pole, encompassing the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding Himalayas, Hindu Kush, and Tianshan Mountains. Recent studies on glacial lake changes and GLOF characteristics and risks in this region have shown scattered and insufficiently detailed features. Here, we conduct an appraisal of the GLOF risks by combining high-resolution satellite images, case-by-case high-precision GLOF modeling, and detailed downstream exposure data. The glacial lake changes from 2018 to 2022 in the region were primarily driven by the accelerated expansion of proglacial lakes. The GLOF frequency has exhibited a significant increasing trend since 1980, with intensified activity in Southeastern Tibet and the China-Nepal border area over the past decade. Approximately 6,353 km2 of land could be at risk from potential GLOFs, posing threats to 55,808 buildings, 105 hydropower projects, 194 km2 of farmland, 5,005 km of roads, and 4,038 bridges. This study directly responds to the need for local disaster prevention and mitigation strategies, highlighting the urgent requirement of reducing GLOF threats in the Third Pole and the importance of regional cooperation.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhanced glacial lake activity threatens numerous communities and infrastructure in the Third Pole

Zhang,

Wang,

et al. 2023

Nat Commun

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“…The cumulative lake size was estimated by adding lake size continuously with an increase in elevation dataset (Mohanty and Maiti, 2021a). The last value will always be equal to the total (sum) for all lake size observations for that year since all frequencies have been added to the previous total.…”

Section: Cumulative Frequencymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Besides, in the Nepal Himalaya, the majority of present-day large moraine-dammed lakes did not exist before the 1950s (Harrison et al, 2018). Many of these lakes started forming in the mid-1950s-1960s as small supraglacial lakes, which coalesced and started growing rapidly in the 1970s (Mohanty and Maiti, 2021a). A little is known about where a lake can be formed and to what extent a lake can be grown.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatio-temporal assessment of regional scale evolution and distribution of glacial lakes in Himalaya

2023

Self Cite

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Glacial lakes are a potential threat to the livelihoods and precious infrastructures in the Himalayan region. The expansion of these lakes under the influence of global warming further poses a grievous risk of natural disasters in the form of glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) that necessitates regular monitoring to reduce and mitigate its implications. This research focuses on the regional scale distribution and evolution of glacial lakes in the Himalayan mountain range with their causes. We used Landsat thematic mapper (TM) and operational land imager (OLI) images, Google Earth imageries, Shuttle radar topographic mission (SRTM) Digital Elevation Model, and Aphrodite climatic data to study lake evolution and its controlling parameters. A total of the 5,409 glacial lakes was taken for the size expansion analysis, which excludes supraglacial lakes. An expansion rate of 2.98%/yr and 1.01%/yr in glacial lakes number and size was found from 1990 to 2020, respectively. The glacial lakes are distributed mainly in Langtang, Bhutan, Sikkim and Everest region; while, new lakes are forming at higher elevations continuously. The highest lake size expansion was noted in 2015–2020 (36.51%) followed by 2000–2010 (21.72%) and 2010–2015 (10.65%), while 1990–2000 (3.36%) showed a lowest expansion rate. The highest expansion rate was noticed near an elevation band of 5000–5500 m. Moreover, lakes in the central and eastern Himalaya are highly decrease by climatic change, i.e., increase in temperature a decrease precipitation. The feature selection algorithm was used to identify the importance of various controlling parameters, which showed temperature change rate, glacier fed lake, glacier snout steepness, proximal distance, glacier calving frontal width, precipitation change rate and lake type gave higher weightage towards lake size change.

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“…The multi-criteria decision algorithms are among the state-of-the-art and easy methods to quantify influencing factors, which have been adopted to determine the probability of glacial lake outburst flooding in the Himalayas [92]. Besides, feature importance techniques can be learned to know which parameters have more control on vegetation since it has been successfully used in the analysis of lake stability [93].…”

Section: Limitation and Prospectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relative Roles of Climate Variation and Human Activities in Vegetation Dynamics in Coastal China from 2000 to 2019

Jiang

Zhang

et al. 2022

Remote Sensing

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Vegetation in the terrestrial ecosystem, sensitive to climate change and human activities, exerts a crucial influence on the carbon cycles in land, ocean, and atmosphere. Discrimination between climate and human-induced vegetation dynamics is advocated but still limited, especially in coastal China, which is characterized by a developed economy, a large population, and high food production, but also by unprecedented climate change and warming. Taking coastal China as the research area, our study used the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in growing seasons, as well as precipitation, temperature, and sunlight hours datasets, adopted residual trend analysis at pixel and regional scales in coastal China from 2000–2019 and aims to (1) delineate the patterns and processes of vegetation changes, and (2) separate the relative contributions of climate and human activities by adopting residual trend analysis. The results indicated that (1) coastal China experienced the most vegetation greening (83.04% of the whole region) and partial degradation (16.86% of the whole region) with significant spatial heterogeneity; (2) compared with climate change, human activities have a greater positive impact on NDVI, and the regions were mainly located in the north of the North China Plain and the south of southern China; (3) the relative contribution rates of climate change and human activities were detected to be 0–60% and 60–100%, respectively; (4) in the northern coastal areas, the improvement of cultivated land management greatly promoted the greening of vegetation and thus the increase of grain yield, while in southern coastal areas, afforestation and the restoration of degraded forest were responsible for vegetation restoration; and (5) similar results obtained by partial correlation between nighttime lights and NDVI indicated the reliability of the residual trend analysis. The linear relationships of precipitation, temperature, and radiation on NDVI may limit the accurate estimation of climate drivers on vegetation, and further ecosystem process-modeling approaches can be used to estimate the relative contribution of climate change and human activities. The findings in our research emphasized that the attribution for vegetation dynamics with heterogeneity can provide evidence for the designation of rational ecological conservation policies.

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Regional morphodynamics of supraglacial lakes in the Everest Himalaya

Cited by 12 publications

References 62 publications

Enhanced glacial lake activity threatens numerous communities and infrastructure in the Third Pole

Enhanced glacial lake activity threatens numerous communities and infrastructure in the Third Pole

Spatio-temporal assessment of regional scale evolution and distribution of glacial lakes in Himalaya

The Relative Roles of Climate Variation and Human Activities in Vegetation Dynamics in Coastal China from 2000 to 2019

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