Abstract
Himalayan glaciers show large spatial variation in glacial retreat and mass loss due to their unique climate setting, altitude and topography. Large variability of glacier response to climate in this region may be due to various factors such as climatic (precipitation, temperature, humidity, wind, etc.) and non-climatic (topography and debris cover). In this study, an attempt has been made to understand the role of topographical parameters and debris cover for glacier recession in Miyar basin, Western Himalaya. Miyar basin is one of the major contributors of water discharge to Indus basin, which has significant population dependent upon the glacier runoff. A total of 29 glaciers covering an area of ~ 227 km2 were studied. The glacier retreat for the period 1989–2014 was estimated using the satellite data of Landsat series (TM, ETM and OLI). Topographical features such as size, aspect, slope and debris cover were extracted from the Landsat Operational Imager scene and ASTER GDEM V2 data. These glaciers were classified based on flow direction, area covered, slope and debris coverage. Observations revealed almost 9 ± 0.7 km2 recessions in glacier area (4%) for studied glaciers of Miyar basin during 1989–2014. Within the Miyar basin glaciers with large size, having a steep slope with high debris cover and northward aspect showed low retreat than glaciers of small size, gentle slope and low debris cover with southward aspect.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Director, ESSO–National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Goa, for continued support. The National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad, India, is acknowledged for Indian Remote Sensing Satellite Images and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for Declassified Corona Images, Landsat images and ASTER GDEM V2 datasets. We thank our field logistic team who were involved in our field trips. We also acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for insightful comments that helped us to improve the manuscript. This is NCAOR contribution no. 10/2018.
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Patel, L.K., Sharma, P., Fathima, T.N. et al. Geospatial observations of topographical control over the glacier retreat, Miyar basin, Western Himalaya, India. Environ Earth Sci 77, 190 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-018-7379-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-018-7379-5