Evolution and bathymetry of glacial lake at the lowest elevation in Nepal Himalaya

One of the prominent impacts of climate change induced glacier retreat in the Himalayas is the formation and expansion of glacial lakes. The newly formed glacial lakes are mostly located in higher altitudinal regions(4200-5800 m) of Himalaya,however, a new glacial lake(Kapuche, 28.446° N and 84.116° E) have been reported to be emerged in the relatively low elevation area of ~2450 m above sea level(masl) in the Nepal Himalaya. This short communication presents the remote sensing-based evolution and field-based bathymetry of Kapuche lake, and further discusses its formation process and lake type for being a glacial lake at the lowest elevation in Nepal Himalaya.

Evaluation of effective spectral features for glacial lake mapping by using Landsat-8 OLI imagery

Glacial lake mapping provides the most feasible way for investigating the water resources and monitoring the flood outburst hazards in High Mountain Region.However,various types of glacial lakes with different properties bring a constraint to the rapid and accurate glacial lake mapping over a large scale.Existing spectral features to map glacial lakes are diverse but some are generally limited to the specific glaciated regions or lake types,some have unclear applicability,which hamper their application for the large areas.To this end,this study provides a solution for evaluating the most effective spectral features in glacial lake mapping using Landsat-8 imagery.The 23 frequently-used lake mapping spectral features,including single band reflectance features,Water Index features and image transformation features were selected,then the insignificant features were filtered out based on scoring calculated from two classical feature selection methods-random forest and decision tree algorithm.The result shows that the three most prominent spectral features(SF)with high scores are NDWI1,EWI,and NDWI3(renamed as SF8,SF19 and SF12 respectively).Accuracy assessment of glacial lake mapping results in five different test sites demonstrate that the selected features performed well and robustly in classifying different types of glacial lakes without any influence from the mountain shadows.SF8 and SF19 are superior for the detection of large amount of small glacial lakes,while some lake areas extracted by SF12 are incomplete.Moreover,SF8 achieved better accuracy than the other two features in terms of both Kappa Coefficient(0.8812)and Prediction(0.9025),which further indicates that SF8 has great potential for large scale glacial lake mapping in high mountainous area.

Zhangmu and Gyirong ports under the threat of glacial lake outburst flood

The Himalayas are prone to glacial lake outburst floods,which can pose a severe threat to downstream villages and infrastructure.The Zhangmu and Gyirong land treaty ports are located on the China-Nepal border in the central Himalayas.In recent years,the expansion of glacial lakes has increased the threat of these two port regions.This article describes the results of mapping the glacial lakes larger than 0.01 km^2 in the Zhangmu and Gyirong port regions and analyzes their change.It provides a comprehensive assessment of potentially dangerous glacial lakes and predicts the development of future glacial lakes.From 1988 to 2019,the glacial lakes in these port regions underwent"expansion",and moraine-dammed lakes show the most significant expansion trend.A total of eleven potentially dangerous glacial lakes are identified based on the assessment criteria and historical outburst events;most expanded by more than 150%from 1988 to 2019,with some by over 500%.The Cirenmaco,a moraine-dammed lake,is extremely prone to overtopping due to ice avalanches or the melting of dead ice in the dam.For other large lakes,such as the Jialongco,Gangxico and Galongco,ice avalanches may likely cause the lakes to burst besides self-destructive failure.The potential dangers of the Youmojianco glacial lakes,including lakes Nos.9,10 and 11,will increase in the future.In addition,the glacier-bed topography model predicts that 113 glacial lakes with a size larger than 0.01 km^2,a total area of 11.88 km2 and a total volume of 6.37×10^9 m^3 will form in the study area by the end of the 21 century.Due to global warming,the glacial lakes in the Zhangmu and Gyirong port regions will continue to grow in the short term,and hence the risk of glacial lake outburst floods will increase.

Overview of an early warning system for Glacial Lake outburst flood risk mitigation in Dudh-Koshi Basin, Nepal

Natural disasters inflict severe damage on almost the entire spectrum of social and natural habitats. This ranges from housing and shelter, water, food, health, sanitation to information and communication networks, supply of power and energy,transportation infrastructure, and others. Nepal is a risk prone country for Glacial Lake Outburst Flood(GLOF). GLOFs exist as major challenges as they repeatedly cause a heavy toll of life and property. During such a disaster, major challenges are indeed the protection of life, property and vital life-supporting infrastructure. Any delay or laxity in disaster relief can escalate the magnitude of distress for the victims. Thus, rather than trying to take curative measures, it is better to minimize the impacts of GLOF. These measures subsequently help in reducing the magnitude of death and casualties due to a GLOF event. This reduction of impact is often achieved by optimizing preventive measures. For applying necessary deterrent measures, it is essential to disseminate information about the danger beforehand. Early Warning System(EWS) is an important step for such information dissemination for GLOF disaster management and helps to anticipate the risk of disaster and disseminate information to lives at risk. It is impossible and impractical to reduce all GLOF risks, but it is possible to reduce several impacts of a GLOF through the implementation of the EWS. This paper presents the design and implementation of an EWS for monitoring potential outbursts of a glacier lake in the Dudh-Koshi Basin, Nepal.

An automated method for glacial lake mapping in High Mountain Asia using Landsat 8 imagery

Glacial lakes in the High Mountain Asia(HMA)are sensitive to global warming and can result in much more severe flood disasters than some largesized lakes.An accurate and robust method for the extraction of glacial lakes is critical to effective management of these natural water resources.Conventional methods often have limitations in terms of low spectral contrast and heterogeneous backgrounds in an image.This study presents a robust and automated method for the yearly mapping of glacial lake over a large scale,which took advantage of the complementarity between the modified normalized difference water index(MNDWI)and the nonlocal active contour model,required only local homogeneity in reflectance features of lake.The cloud computing approach with the Google Earth Engine(GEE)platform was used to process the intensive amount of Landsat 8 images from 2015 (344 path/rows and approximately 7504 scenes).The experimental results were validated by very high resolution images from Chinese GaoFen-1 (GF-1) panchromatic multi-spectral(PMS)and appeared a general good agreement.This is the first time that information regarding the spatial distribution of glacial lakes over the HMA has been derived automatically within quite a short period of time.By integrating it with the relevant indices,it can also be applied to detect other land cover types such as snow or vegetation with improved accuracy.

Improvement of Glacial Lakes Detection under Shadow Environment Using ASTER Data in Himalayas, Nepal

The detection of glacial lake change in the Himalayas, Nepal is extremely significant since the glacial lake change is one of the crucial indicators of global climate change in this area, where is the most sensitive area of the global climate changes. In the Himalayas, some of glacial lakes are covered by the dark mountains′ shadow because of their location. Therefore, these lakes can not be detected by conventional method such as Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), because the reflectance feature of shadowed glacial lake is different comparing to the ones which are located in the open flat area. The shadow causes two major problems: 1) glacial lakes which are covered by shadow completely result in underestimation of the number of glacial lakes; 2) glacial lakes which are partly identified are considered to undervalue the area of glacial lakes. The aim of this study is to develop a new model, named Detection of Shadowed Glacial Lakes (DSGL) model, to identify glacial lakes under the shadow environment by using Advanced Space-borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) data in the Himalayas, Nepal. The DSGL model is based on integration of two different modifications of NDWI, namely NDWIs model and NDWI she model. NDWIs is defined as integration of the NDWI and slope analysis and used for detecting non-shadowed lake in the mountain area. The NDWIshe is proposed as a new methodology to overcome the weakness of NDWIs on identifying shadowed lakes in highly elevated mountainous area such as the Himalayas. The first step of the NDWIshe is to enhance the data from ASTER 1B using the histogram equalization (HE) method, and its outcome product is named ASTER he . We used the ASTER he for calculating the NDWI he and the NDWIshe . Integrated with terrain analysis using Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data, the NDWI she can be used to identify the shadowed glacial lakes in the Himalayas. NDWIs value of 0.41 is used to identify the glacier lake (NDWIs≥0.41), and 0.3 of NDWIshe is used to identify the shadowed glacier lake (NDWIshe≤0.3). The DSGL model was proved to be able to classify the glacial lakes more accurately, while the NDWI model had tendency to underestimate the presence of actual glacial lakes. Correct classification rate regarding the products from NDWI model and DSGL model were 57% and 99%, respectively. The results of this paper demonstrated that the DSGL model is promising to detect glacial lakes in the shadowed environment at high mountains.

Mapping of moraine dammed glacial lakes and assessment of their areal changes in the central and eastern Himalayas using satellite data

The relatively rapid recession of glaciers in the Himalayas and formation of moraine dammed glacial lakes(MDGLs) in the recent past have increased the risk of glacier lake outburst floods(GLOF) in the countries of Nepal and Bhutan and in the mountainous territory of Sikkim in India. As a product of climate change and global warming, such a risk has not only raised the level of threats to the habitation and infrastructure of the region, but has also contributed to the worsening of the balance of the unique ecosystem that exists in this domain that sustains several of the highest mountain peaks of the world. This study attempts to present an up to date mapping of the MDGLs in the central and eastern Himalayan regions using remote sensing data, with an objective to analyse their surface area variations with time from 1990 through 2015, disaggregated over six episodes. The study also includes the evaluation for susceptibility of MDGLs to GLOF with the least criteria decision analysis(LCDA). Forty two major MDGLs, each having a lake surface area greater than 0.2 km2, that were identified in the Himalayan ranges of Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim, have been categorized according to their surface area expansion rates in space and time. The lakes have been identified as located within the elevation range of 3800 m and6800 m above mean sea level(a msl). With a total surface area of 37.9 km2, these MDGLs as a whole were observed to have expanded by an astonishing 43.6% in area over the 25 year period of this study. A factor is introduced to numerically sort the lakes in terms of their relative yearly expansion rates, based on their interpretation of their surface area extents from satellite imageries. Verification of predicted GLOF events in the past using this factor with the limited field data as reported in literature indicates that the present analysis may be considered a sufficiently reliable and rapid technique for assessing the potential bursting susceptibility of the MDGLs. The analysis also indicates that, as of now, there are eight MDGLs in the region which appear to be in highly vulnerable states and have high chances in causing potential GLOF events anytime in the recent future.

Decadal glacial lake changes in the Koshi basin, central Himalaya, from 1977 to 2010, derived from Landsat satellite images

Changes in glacial lakes and the consequences of these changes, particularly on the development of water resources and management of glacial lake outburst flood(GLOF) risk, has become one of the challenges in the sustainable development of high mountain areas in the context of global warming. This paper presents the findings of a study on the distribution of, and area changes in, glacial lakes in the Koshi basin in the central Himalayas.Data on the number of glacial lakes and their area was generated for the years 1977, 1990, 2000, and 2010 using Landsat satellite images. According to the glacial lake inventory in 2010, there were a total of 2168 glacial lakes with a total area of 127.61 km^2 and average size of 0.06 km^2 in the Koshi basin. Of these,47% were moraine dammed lakes, 34.8% bedrock dammed lakes and 17.7% ice dammed lakes. The number of glacial lakes increased consistently over the study period from 1160 in 1977 to 2168 in 2010, an overall growth rate of 86.9%. The area of glacial lakes also increased from 94.44 km^2 in 1977 to 127.61 km^2 in 2010, a growth rate of 35.1%. A large number of glacial lakes in the inventory are small in size(≤ 0.1km^2). End moraine dammed lakes with area greater than 0.1 km^2 were selected to analyze the change characteristics of glacial lakes in the basin. The results show that, in 2010, there were 129 lakes greater than 0.1 km^2 in area; these lakes had a total area of 42.92km^2 in 1997, increasing to 63.28 km^2 in 2010. The distribution of lakes on the north side of the Himalayas(in China) was three times higher than on the south side of the Himalayas(in Nepal).Comparing the mean growth rate in area for the 33 year study period(1977-2010), the growth rate on the north side was found to be a little slower than that on the south side. A total of 42 glacial lakes with an area greater than 0.2 km^2 are rapidly growing between 1977 and 2010 in the Koshi basin, which need to be paid more attention to monitoring in the future and to identify how critical they are in terms of GLOF.

A framework of numerical simulation on moraine-dammed glacial lake outburst floods

Glacial outburst floods(GLOFs) in alpine regions tend to be relatively complicated, multi-stage catastrophes, capable of causing significant geomorphologic changes in channel surroundings and posing severe threats to infrastructure and the safety and livelihoods of human communities. GLOF disasters have been observed and potential hazards can be foreseen due to the newly formed glacial lakes or the expansion of existing ones in the Poiqu River Basin in Tibet, China. Here we presented a synthesis of GLOF-related studies including triggering mechanism(s), dam breach modeling, and flood routing simulation that have been employed to reconstruct or forecast GLOF hydrographs. We provided a framework for probability-based GLOFs simulation and hazard mapping in the Poiqu River Basin according to available knowledge. We also discussed the uncertainties and challenges in the model chains, which may form the basis for further research.

Moraine-dammed glacial lake changes during the recent 40 years in the Poiqu River Basin,Himalayas

Glacier retreat is not only a symbol of temperature and precipitation change, but a dominating factor of glacial lake changes in alpine regions, which are of wide concern for high risk of potential outburst floods. Of all types of glacial lakes, moraine-dammed lakes may be the most dangerous to local residents in mountain regions. Thus, we monitored the dynamics of 12 moraine-dammed glacial lakes from 1974 to 2014 in the Poiqu River Basin of central west Himalayas, as well as their associated glaciers with a combination of remote sensing, topographic maps and digital elevation models(DEMs). Our results indicate that all monitored moraine-dammed glacial lakes have expanded by 7.46 km2 in total while the glaciers retreated by a total of 15.29 km2 correspondingly. Meteorological analysis indicates a warming and drying trend in the Nyalam region from 1974 to 2014, which accelerated glacier retreat and then augmented the supply of moraine-dammed glacial lakes from glacier melt. Lake volume and water depth changed from 1974 to 2014 which indicates that lakes Kangxico, Galongco, and Youmojanco have a high potential for outburst floods and in urgent need for continuous monitoring or artificial excavation to release water due to the quick increase in water depths and storage capacities. Lakes Jialongco and Cirenmaco, with outburst floods in 1981 and 2002, have a high potential risk for outburst floods because of rapid lake growth and steep slope gradients surrounding them.

Outburst mechanism of Yindapu Glacial Lake in Tibet

At present,the mechanism research on glacial lake outburst mainly focuses on the ice quake and ice landslide,etc. To some glacial lakes,the seepage deformation is the dominant factor in outburst process. Taking the Yindapu Glacial Lake in Tibet as an example,using SEEP/W module of FEM software (GEO-STUDIO),the authors analyzed seepage stability of terminal moraine ridge dam. The leading role of seepage deformation in some glacial lake outburst mechanism is proposed and proved.

Glacial Lakes in the Andes under a Changing Climate:A Review

In this article, we review the current knowledge of the glacial recession and related glacial lake development in the Andes of South America. Since the mid-1980 s, hundreds of glacial lakes either expanded or formed, and predictions show that additional hundreds of lakes will form throughout the 21 st century. However, studies on glacial lakes in the Andes are still relatively rare. Many glacial lakes pose a potential hazard to local communities, but glacial lake outburst floods(GLOFs) are understudied. We provide an overview on hazards from glacial lakes such as GLOFs and water pollution, and their monitoring approaches. In real-time monitoring, the use of unmanned aerial systems(UASs) and early warning systems(EWSs) is still extremely rare in the Andes, but increasingly authorities plan to install mitigation systems to reduce glacial lake risk and protect local communities. In support, we propose an international remote sensing-based observation initiative following the model of, for example, the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space(GLIMS) one, with the headquarters in one of the Andean nations.

Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Disasters and Integrated Risk Management in China

High-risk areas for glacial lake outburst flood(GLOF) disasters in China are mainly concentrated in the middle-eastern Himalayas and Nyainqe?ntanglha(Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains), Tibetan Plateau. In the past 20 years, glaciers in these regions have retreated and thinned rapidly as a response to regional climate warming,leading to the formation of new glacial lakes and the expansion of existing glacial lakes. These areas are located in the border belt between the Indian and the Eurasian plates, where tectonic seismic activity is also frequent and intense. Earthquakes have often compromised the stability of mountain slopes, glaciers, and moraine dams, resulting in an imbalance in the state of glacial lakes and an increase of loose materials in valleys. It is foreseeable that the possibility of GLOFs and disaster occurrence will be great in the context of frequent earthquakes and continued climate warming. This article presents the temporal and spatial characteristics of GLOF disasters, as well as the conditions and mechanisms of GLOF disaster formation,and proposes an integrated risk management strategy to cope with GLOF disasters. It aims to facilitate the mitigation of the impacts of GLOF disasters on mountain economic and social systems, and improve disaster risk analysis, as well as the capability of risk management and disaster prevention and reduction.

Glacier-Glacial Lake Interactions and Glacial Lake Development in the Central Himalaya,India(1994–2017)

Despite several regional glacier and glacier lake inventories, the relationship between receding glacier, glacial lake evolution(glacial-lake interactions) and their sensitivity to different forcing factors have not been properly understood yet. To better understand these processes, we used satellite images collected in 1994, 2015 and 2017 to monitor the spatially-explicit evolution of glacial lakes and glacier changes. The results show a total of 1 353 glacial lakes covering an area of 7.96 km;in the year 2015. Out of these, a total of 137 glacial lakes having an area of >0.01 km;and located within 2 km periphery of mother glacier have been selected for the monitoring of spatial development between 1994 and 2017. We found an increase in the total lake area from ~4.9 to ~7.73 km;between 1994 and 2017,corresponding to an overall expansion of ~57%. The total area covered by the glaciers associated with these lakes reduced from ~365 km;in 1994 to ~358 km^(2) in 2017, accounting for a glacier loss of ~7 km^(2) and corresponding to ~1.92% reduction. Our study results are in agreement with global glacier behavior, revealing a rapid glacier recession and accelerated glacial lake expansion under an unprecedented climate change scenario. In addition, the results suggest a significant reduction in the glacier area and a close relationship between the glacier melting and lake changes.

Water quality and light absorption attributes of glacial lakes in Mount Qomolangma region

因为他们是冰河运动的产品，冰川的湖的水身体作文和水质量属性与内陆湖相比有不同特征。尽管卫星遥感提供一条有效途径监视水质量，缺乏在原处，包围冰川的湖的地位和环境上的测量数据在联系卫星数据浇优秀指示物介绍主要限制。这研究在山 Qomolangma 区域介绍初步的调查的调查结果进 3 个冰川的湖的水质量属性。推迟的微粒物质(SPM ) ，浮游植物的轻吸收属性， nonalgal 粒子(小睡) ，和有颜色的溶解有机物(CDOM ) 被测量。推迟的物质集中从 0320 mg/L 显著地变化。这被认为反映湖开发的不同舞台。叶绿素集中比作出对内陆湖有利的裁决的低得多，作为包围这些高高度湖的风景几乎不有植被生长。浮游植物和 CDOM 集中取决于湖斜坡的长期的稳定性。在 Qomolangma 区域给外长、内长的输入的缺乏，在冰川的湖的 CDOM 比在内陆湖显著地低。这些初步的调查结果能支持努力用遥远地察觉到的图象估价水质量参数的估计。

High-Resolution Records of the Holocene Paleoenvironmental Variation Reflected by Carbonate and Its Isotopic Compositions in Bosten Lake and Response to Glacial Activities

The Early Holocene paleoclimate in Bosten Lake on the northern margin of the Tarim Basin, southern Xinjiang, is reconstructed through an analysis of a 953 cm long core (BSTC2000) taken from Bosten Lake. Multiple proxies of this core, including the mineral components of carbonate, carbonate content, stable isotopic compositions of carbonate, Ca/Sr, TOC and C/N and C/S of organic matter, are used to reconstruct the climatic change since 8500 a B.P. The chronology model is made by nine AMS 14C ages of leaves, seeds and organic matter contained in two parallel cores. The climate was cold and wet during 8500 to 8100 a B.P. Temperature increased from 8100 to 6400 a B.P., the climate was warm and humid, and the lake expanded. The lake level was highest during this stage. Then from 6400 to 5100 a B.P., the climate became cold and the lake level decreased slightly. During the late mid-Holocene, the climate was hot and dry from 5100 to 3100 a B.P., but there was a short cold period during 4400 to 3800 a B.P. At this temporal interval, a mass of ice and snow melting water supplied the lake at the early time and made the lake level rise. The second highest lake level stage occurred during 5200 to 3800 a B.P. The climate was cool and wet during 3100 to 2200 a B.P., when the lake expanded with decreasing evaporation. The lake had the last short-term high level during 3100 to 2800 a B.P. After this short high lake level period, the lake shrank because of the long-term lower temperature and reduced water supply. From 2200 to 1200 a B.P., the climate was hot and dry, and the lake shrank greatly. Although the temperature decreased somewhat from 1200 a B.P. to the present, the climate was warm and dry. The lake level began to rise a little again, but it did not reach the river bed altitude of the Konqi River, an outflow river of the Bosten Lake.

基于Sentinel-2影像的新疆冰湖制图及空间分布特征

在全球气候变暖的背景下,新疆的冰川迅速融化,形成了大量规模较小的冰湖。部分冰湖在短时间内迅速扩大,并可能引发溃决洪水,提高对这些小型冰湖的制图精度对深入了解冰川冰湖灾害机理至关重要。本文基于Sentinel-2影像和DUNet语义分割模型生成2022年新疆冰湖数据集,并结合历史冰湖数据分析了冰湖的空间分布特征。结果表明,大(>10 hm^(2))、中(>1~10 hm^(2))、小(≤1 hm^(2))型冰湖的制图平均误差分别为2.29%、10.02%、27.71%,平均误差均小于已有的三种冰湖产品,其中面积>0.81 hm^(2)的冰湖相对误差为18.36%。2022年新疆>0.06 hm^(2)的冰湖数量为6854个,总面积为200.36 km^(2)。其中,≤1 hm^(2)的冰湖占总数量的70.32%,>1 hm^(2)的冰湖占总面积的92.49%。阿尔泰山区、天山西部、天山南部是新疆冰湖分布最集中的区域,也是近30年来冰湖数量增加最多的区域;在各区域中,面积≤10 hm^(2)的冰湖数量增加最为显著。本研究可为新疆冰湖灾害预警、冰湖灾害评价提供数据支持和有效依据。

一种改进的深度学习冰湖遥感制图方法及应用

冰湖溃决洪水是一种严重的山地自然灾害,威胁着中国高寒区的居民及铁路公路等重要基础设施,自动高效的冰湖遥感制图方法是冰湖灾害评估、监测预警的基础,然而现有自动制图方法在实际冰湖提取应用上难以达到传统人工和半自动冰湖提取方法上的精度,仍需进一步提高。文章在原生UNet模型基础上,在各桥连接部分融合极化自注意力机制,将输入影像特征分别在空间和通道层保持高分辨率,并通过非线性合成输出细腻的特征,构建了一种改进的U-Net冰湖遥感深度学习制图方法,并将其成功应用在高原铁路关键区。研究结果表明:1)与PSPNet、DeepLabV3+、原生U-Net三种经典模型相比,改进模型在冰湖预测数据集上的各项指标上都有提升,精确率、召回率、交并比和F_1值分别达到了0.972 5、0.966 5、0.940 8和0.969 4,相较于原生U-Net网络,精确度、召回率、交并比和F_1值分别提高了5.01%、6.05%、10.73%和5.53%;2)基于Landsat-8卫星遥感数据,应用改进模型完成了2013—2022年帕隆藏布和易贡藏布案例区冰湖信息自动高效提取,如2020年冰湖总体精度为98.16%,与参照数据的重叠度达到96.66%,提取的精度满足冰湖灾害评估和监测预警研究需求,可用于铁路等重大工程沿线冰湖灾害防治的实践。

Can a dam type of an alpine lake be derived from lake geometry?A negative result

Glacial lake outburst floods(GLOFs)represent one of the most serious hazard and risk in deglaciating high mountain regions worldwide and the need for GLOF hazard and risk assessment is apparent.As a consequence,numerous region-and nation-wide GLOF assessment studies have been published recently.These studies cover large areas and consider hundreds to thousands of lakes,prioritizing the hazard posed by them.Clearly,certain simplification is required for executing such studies,often resulting in neglecting qualitative characteristics which would need manual assignment.Different lake dam types(e.g.,bedrock-dammed,moraine-dammed)are often not distinguished,despite they control GLOF mechanism(dam overtopping/dam breach)and thus GLOF magnitude.In this study,we explore the potential of easily measurable quantitative characteristics and four ratios to approximate the lake dam type.Our dataset of 851 lakes of the Cordillera Blanca suggests that while variances and means of these characteristics of individual lake types differ significantly(F-test,t-test),value distribution of different geometrical properties can’t be used for the originally proposed purpose along the spectra.The only promising results are obtained for extreme values(selected bins)of the ratios.For instance,the low width to length ratio indicates likely morainedammed lake while the high value of ratio indicating round-shape of the lake indicates increased likelihood of bedrock-dammed lake.Overall,we report a negative result of our experiment since there are negligible differences of relative frequencies in most of the bins along the spectra.

Changes in Imja Lake and Karda Lake in the Everest Region of Himalaya

The Himalaya is a region sensitive to climate change. Changes in the glacial regime are one indicator of global climate changes. There are several studies focusing on analysis of temporal changes of these glacial lakes in the Himalaya region. However, the researches on addressing these trends in relation with surrounding topographical conditions are quite limited. In this study, we analyzed spatio-temporal changes in Imja Lake, located on the southern slope, and Karda Lake, located on the northern slope of the Mt. Everest region, in 1976, 1992, 2000, and 2008. Moreover, we examined whether the topographic conditions differ between the two slopes. Landsat and ASTER GDEM (advanced space borne thermal emission and reflection radiometer, global digital elevation model) data were used to identify boundaries of target glacial lakes and to calculate three indices of growth rate compared to year of 1976 (%, GRa), growth rate compared to preceding year (%, GRb), and growth speed (m2/year, GS) of the two lakes. The topographic conditions in circular buffer zones from the centroid of the two lakes were analyzed. Although the area of two lakes demonstrated linear increase from 1976 to 2008, growth rate compared to year of 1976 (GRa) differed significantly (Kruskal-Wallis test, p squared test for independence on m × n contingency table between 1976, 1992, 2000, and 2008 on growth speed (GS)). The two slopes differed in terms of three topographical variables: altitude, aspect, and angle of inclination (Kruskal-Wallis test,