A geospatial analysis of Samudra Tapu and Gepang Gath glacial lakes in the Chandra Basin, Western Himalaya

Lavkush Kumar Patel (), Parmanand Sharma (), C. M. Laluraj (), Meloth Thamban (), Ajit Singh () and Rasik Ravindra ()
Additional contact information
Lavkush Kumar Patel: ESSO-National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences
Parmanand Sharma: ESSO-National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences
C. M. Laluraj: ESSO-National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences
Meloth Thamban: ESSO-National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences
Ajit Singh: ESSO-National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences
Rasik Ravindra: Earth System Science Organization, Ministry of Earth Sciences (Government of India)

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2017, vol. 86, issue 3, No 14, 1275-1290

Abstract: Abstract Geospatial studies carried out in two major proglacial lakes of Samudra Tapu and Gepang Gath (Chandra Basin, Western Himalaya) showed substantial expansion in their area and volume over the last four decades (1971–2014). The linear and areal expansions for the lakes Samudra Tapu and Gepang Gath were 1889, 1509 m and 1, 0.6 km2, respectively. The results show that increased melting of the feeder glaciers over this period is major contributor to expand the volumes approximately 20 times of both the lakes Samudra Tapu and Gepang Gath. This expansion of lakes volume of Samudra Tapu and Gepang Gath from 3.4 × 106 to 67.7 × 106 and 1.5 × 106 to 27.5 × 106 m3, respectively, is quite significance in terms of hazards generated from glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF). This kind of climate change induced increase in the rate of glacial melting is a cause of concern, as the Himalaya Mountains may turn out to be vulnerable to natural hazards like GLOF.

Keywords: Geospatial techniques; Proglacial lakes; Glacial lake outburst floods; Chandra Basin; Himalaya (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-017-2743-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:86:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11069-017-2743-4

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

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-017-2743-4

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 ().