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Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers pp 76–83Cite as

Automated Glacier Mapping

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Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Synonyms

Glacier mapping; Glacier outline digitizing; Multispectral classification

Definition

Automated glacier mapping generates digital glacier outlines in a vector format from automated classification of remote sensing data.

Historical background

Glaciers and icecaps were in the focus of satellite observations at the time when the first data from the Landsat mission (1972) became available. While the large regions covered by satellite data were always considered as a benefit for glacier related applications, mapping of glacier extent was introduced quite late. Early applications focused on discriminating snow from ice and mapping of snowlines (Østrem, 1975; Rott, 1976) or analysis of glacier movement and flow characteristics (Krimmel and Meier, 1975). It has to be noted that in the early days of data analysis (1970s), most work was performed on contrast enhanced photographic prints rather than with digital data (e.g., Dowdeswell and Cooper, 1986). The full potential of directly...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057, Zurich, Switzerland

    Frank Paul

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  1. Frank Paul
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Correspondence to Frank Paul .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

    Vijay P. Singh

  2. New Delhi, India

    Pratap Singh

  3. University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, USA

    Umesh K. Haritashya

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Paul, F. (2011). Automated Glacier Mapping. In: Singh, V.P., Singh, P., Haritashya, U.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2642-2_33

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