Taikichiro Mori Memorial Research Fund
Graduate Student Researcher Development Grant Report
February 2012
Research Project: Monitoring of Glacial Lake Changes in the Northern and Southern
Slope of the Everest Region, Himalaya during Past Thirty Years
Researcher: Wenbo Chen, D3
Affiliation:
Supervisor: Prof. Wanglin Yan
Email: chenwb@sfc.keio.ac.jp
In Himalaya, many glaciers have
retreated resulting in the expansion of glacial lakes since the second half of
the 20th century. Such changes on glacial lakes are hazardous to communities and
infrastructure of downstream because of its potential disaster such as glacial
lake outburst flood (GLOF), and also influence regional eco-environment. The
study area is located in Everest region of Himalaya including the northern slope
in China and the southern slope in Nepal. The altitude ranges from 825 m to 8848
m high. In this study, temporal changes of glacial lakes were analyzed on the
northern and the southern slopes in the Everest region of the Himalayas using
satellite data and elevational data. Both the number and area of glacial lakes
increased on the northern slope and the southern slope. Elevation distribution
of most glacial lakes was from 4640 m to 5219 m high. However, the elevation
distribution of glacial lakes was different between the northern slope and
southern slope. This work reveals that some glacial lakes grow faster on the
southern slope than the one on the northern slope, and we recommend that these
fast-expanding lakes be monitored and mapped regularly considering the potential
danger of GLOF. The tendency of these glacial lakes to expand is possibly
related to global climate change. Therefore, it is recommended that the
relationship between the expansion of glacial lakes and climatic factors be
studied further.
Conference and Symposium
· Wenbo CHEN, Wanglin YAN, Tomoko DOKO, Hiromichi FUKUI, Space-based information and risk assessment of glacial lake in Everest Region, Himalaya, The 11th Science Council of Asia (SCA) Conference, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 4-6 July, 2011.
·
Wenbo CHEN, Hiromichi FUKUI, Tomoko DOKO, Comparison study on
expansion of glacial lakes in Northern and Southern slope of Himalaya, The 34th
International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment, Sydney, Australia,
10-15 April, 2011.
Journal
·
Wenbo CHEN, Hiromichi FUKUI, Tomoko DOKO, Xingfa GU, Detection
of Glacial Lakes under the Shadow Environment Using ASTER data in Himalaya,
Nepal, Chinese Geographical Science (in review)