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Retreating Glacier Dynamics Over the Last Quarter of a Century in Uttarakhand Region Using Optical Sensor Time Series Data

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Abstract

The Uttarakhand glaciers have been melting over the last half of a century. Local climatic variation has influenced the glacier retreat but these phenomena do not appear to affect the glacier health over long period of time. The increased availability of geospatial technology, global coverage and very low financial costs allows for fast, semi-automated, and cost-effective assessment of changes in glacier parameters over large areas. Geospatial technology allow for regular monitoring of the properties of Uttarakhand glaciers such as terminus position and ice extent from which glacier mass balance can be inferred. Geospatial technology is the only technique that can help to determine it using different platform like space-borne and air-borne sensors. The basic semantic characterization of geospatial technology is primarily used for spectral characterization in Uttarakhand glacial and depicting snow and ice top. Semi-automated geospatial technique helps in processing all data collected from on-board and off-board systems. This research analyzed the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) for showing snow cover delineation area and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for vegetation cover delineation. The study aim to refer the changes from 1994 to 2015 and detected for snow and vegetation changed over quarter of the century. The study will helps to determine glacier dynamics and its kinetic change rate and also useful to global level studies and snow change detection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Science & Technology, Haryana Space Applications Centre (HARSAC), Hisar, India

    Himanshu Kalita

  2. Punjab Remote Sensing Centre, Ludhiyana, India

    Tapan Ghosh

  3. Department of Geography, Kumaun University, Nainital, Uttarakhand, India

    Meenu Rani

  4. Remote Sensing and GIS, Kumaun University, Almora, Uttarakhand, India

    J. S. Rawat

  5. Department of Natural Resources, TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi, India

    Ram Kumar Singh

  6. Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, College of Agriculture, Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Susheel Kumar Singh

  7. College of Horticulture and Forestry, Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Pavan Kumar

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  1. Himanshu Kalita
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Horticulture and Forestry, Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Pavan Kumar

  2. Department of Geography, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, Delhi, India

    Haroon Sajjad

  3. Department of Geophysics, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India

    Bhagwan Singh Chaudhary

  4. Remote Sensing and GIS, Kumaun University, Almora, Uttarakhand, India

    J. S. Rawat

  5. Department of Geography, Kumaun University, Nainital, Uttarakhand, India

    Meenu Rani

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Kalita, H. et al. (2021). Retreating Glacier Dynamics Over the Last Quarter of a Century in Uttarakhand Region Using Optical Sensor Time Series Data. In: Kumar, P., Sajjad, H., Chaudhary, B.S., Rawat, J.S., Rani, M. (eds) Remote Sensing and GIScience . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55092-9_5

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