Characterizing Glaciers in the Koshi River Basin, High Mountain Asia
Abstract
According to the UN's 2018 Synthesis Report on Water and Sanitation, more than 2 billion people experience water stress, and the highest levels of stress occur in northern Africa and western, central, and southern Asia. Recent climate models coupled with glacier mass balance models show that glaciers in High Mountain Asia (HMA) are expected to experience increasing mass loss without replenishment that will lead to a decrease in meltwater by the second half of this century. This decrease in glacial melt water will exacerbate water stress in HMA; glacial melt is essential for the region's drought relief and agricultural success. In the meantime, people living in HMA, specifically the Koshi River Basin, face potential danger as glaciers melt, glacial lakes grow, and the need to monitor the risk of outburst floods increases. In order to understand the evolution of glaciers in HMA and better predict their future contribution to water resources, our first step in this new project is to create an inventory of the roughly 1000 glaciers in the Koshi River Basin using publicly-available data from NASA's National Snow and Ice Data Center and the Randolph Glacier Inventory. We will characterize glaciers using several metrics, including: glacier area, slope, hypsometry, aspect, elevation line altitude, debris cover, and terminus elevation. Where data are available, we will also explore differences between ice thickness, ice thickness change, and ice velocity. These findings can help better calibrate glacier evolution models as well as act as a case study that will bring insight into a region that is typically heterogenous in climate. Finally, we hope to add to the knowledge we have about glaciers in this basin so that local leaders can make informed decisions about water management.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMC029.0003L
- Keywords:
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- 0720 Glaciers;
- CRYOSPHERE;
- 0736 Snow;
- CRYOSPHERE;
- 0744 Rivers;
- CRYOSPHERE;
- 1833 Hydroclimatology;
- HYDROLOGY