Glacier changes and related glacial lake expansion in the Bhutan Himalaya, 1990–2010

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• 作者：Bijeesh Kozhikkodan Veettil ; Nilceia Bianchini…
• 刊名：Regional Environmental Change
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：June 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：16
• 期：5
• 页码：1267-1278
• 全文大小：3,282 KB
• 刊物类别：Earth and Environmental Science
• 刊物主题：Environment
  Geoecology and Natural Processes
  Geology
  Oceanography
  Geography
  Nature Conservation
  Regional Science
  
• 出版者：Springer Berlin / Heidelberg
• ISSN：1436-378X
• 卷排序：16

文摘

This paper discusses the recent retreat of glaciers and the changes in supraglacial lakes in the Bhutan Himalaya during the last two decades. We calculated the changes in clean and debris-covered glaciers and the formation, disappearance, and expansion of glacial lakes during the beginning of 1990s, 2000s, and 2010 using Landsat TM and ETM+ images. For this purpose, eight river sub-basins namely Wang Chu, Chamkar Chu, Dangme Chu, Kuri Chu, Mangde Chu, Mo Chu, Pho Chu and Northern Basin were considered. A retreating trend was found in the case of clean glaciers. Debris-covered glaciers in this region were found to have undergone an increase of about 29 %, and this increase was partially contributed by those expanded upstream. This increase in the debris-covered area is higher on the southern side of the Bhutan Himalaya. It is found that a number of moraine-dammed glacial lakes were formed during this period and can be potentially dangerous depending on the size, distance from the glacier and altitude. Most of the glacial lake formation and expansion occurred on the southern side of the Bhutan Himalaya.KeywordsBhutan HimalayaRemote sensingDebris-covered glaciersGlacial lakes