The evolution of Petrov lake and moraine dam rupture risk (Tien-Shan, Kyrgyzstan)

Bohumír Janský (), Zbyněk Engel, Miroslav Šobr, Vojtěch Beneš, Karel Špaček and Serguei Yerokhin

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2009, vol. 50, issue 1, 83-96

Abstract: An interdisciplinary study of glacier-related hazards in the Petrov lake region (Ak-Shiirak Range, the Inner Tien-Shan, Kyrgyzstan) has been undertaken to identify potential dangers to the area. A cooperative effort from experts in the fields of hydrology, glaciology, geomorphology and geophysics has been employed in this study. For the hazard assessment, evolution of the Petrov glacier and lake was reconstructed using historical reports, aerial photographs and satellite images. Geomorphological mapping and geophysical soundings was applied to the lake territory and the moraine dam. This has identified potentially hazardous areas of the dam including subsurface drainage zones and cracks that could cause a sudden extremely high discharge. In the past three decades, the Petrov lake has doubled in size, while in recent years, its area has been increasing by more than 92,000 square metres per year. Although there is no evidence for an imminent outburst, the dramatic increase in the lake’s size emphasizes the importance of this study. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Keywords: Moraine-dammed lake; Rupture risk; Bathymetry; Geophysical measurements; Glacier fluctuations; Petrov glacier; Tien-Shan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11069-008-9321-8 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:50:y:2009:i:1:p:83-96

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-008-9321-8

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().