Glacier Volume Changes and Their Climatic Causes in Tirungkhad Basin Located in Western Himalaya

Autores/as

  • Riyaz Ahmad Mir Deparment of Earth Sciences IIT ROORKEE
  • Sanjay K. Jain NIH Roorkee
  • Arun K. Saraf Department of Earth Sciences IIT Roorkee
  • Ajanta Goswami IIRS Dehradun

Palabras clave:

Glacier, Remote sensing, Volume, Climate, Himalaya

Resumen

In the Himalaya, a significant number of glaciers are shrinking due to climatic variations. Monitoring of these glaciers is important to assess future availability of water resources. However, Himalayan glaciers are normally difficult to monitor due to the rugged, mountainous terrain. Therefore, in the present study, Survey of India (SOI) topographical maps (1966) and Landsat datasets as ETM+ (2000, 2006) and TM (2011) were used to monitor glacier volume changes in the Tirungkhad basin, a tributary of Satluj River, located in the western Himalaya.  The glacial volumes were estimated using regression relationship between area and depth. The investigations have suggested an overall reduction of 32% from 1966 (9.13 km3) to 2011 (6.19 km3). Trend analysis showed significant increase in temperature (TMax and TMin) associated with significant decrease in snowfall (SWE) and insignificant decrease in rainfall. These investigations suggest that the variations in meteorological parameters may be one of the reasons for glacier volume changes in the study area. In the long run, these changes in volume of glaciers can create scarcity of water in the region

Biografía del autor/a

  • Riyaz Ahmad Mir, Deparment of Earth Sciences IIT ROORKEE
    GEOLOGIST, GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA.

Publicado

2013-07-22

Número

Sección

Research Articles