International Journal of

ADVANCED AND APPLIED SCIENCES

EISSN: 2313-3724, Print ISSN: 2313-626X

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 Volume 8, Issue 1 (January 2021), Pages: 41-49

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 Original Research Paper

 Title: Simulation of glacial lake outburst flood hazard in Hunza valley of upper Indus Basin

 Author(s): Naseem Gilany 1, *, Javed Iqbal 1, Anwaar Ahmed 2

 Affiliation(s):

 1School of Civil and Environment Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan
 2National Institute of Transportation, SCEE, NUST, Islamabad, Pakistan

  Full Text - PDF          XML

 * Corresponding Author. 

  Corresponding author's ORCID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5241-9888

 Digital Object Identifier: 

 https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2021.01.006

 Abstract:

The UIB (Upper Indus Basin) is prone to GLOFs (Glacial Lake Outburst Floods). Physical monitoring of such a large area on a regular basis is a challenging task, especially when the temporal and spatial extent of the hazard is highly variable. The purpose of this study was to map the potentially dangerous glacial lakes and simulate the associated hazard in the downward settlements using HEC-RAS in the GIS environment using Landsat 7 remote sensing data. The study was conducted in Hunza Valley of UIB, where there are several human settlements that are endangered due to the GLOF hazard. Sudden breaches in the unstable moraine dams adjoining receding glaciers may occur because of the rapid and huge accumulation of turbulent water in the glacial lakes. The ASTER GDEM (Digital Elevation Model) is utilized to detect flow accumulation of glacial hazard involving slope, elevation, and orientation of the mountain glaciers. The study results revealed that settlements of Hunza Valley are threatened by the GLOFs hazard. Keeping in view the seasonal growth of the potentially dangerous glacial lakes of Hunza Valley, a low discharge of 3500m3/s from a potentially dangerous glacial lake can affect 40%, whereas a moderate discharge of 5000m3/s can affect 60%, and a high discharge of 7000m3/s can affect 80% of the Shimshal village habitat. The results of the study can provide a platform for the establishment of an early warning and monitoring system to minimize the impact of future GLOFs. Accurate and comprehensive knowledge of potentially dangerous GLOFs is of utmost importance for risk management. A digital repository of GLOFs can enhance the ability to inform policymakers on the vulnerability, risk mitigation, and action/adaptation measures. 

 © 2020 The Authors. Published by IASE.

 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

 Keywords: Anthropogenic, Disastrous, Geo-morphology, Glacial lake outburst flood

 Article History: Received 13 May 2020, Received in revised form 23 August 2020, Accepted 25 August 2020

 Acknowledgment:

We are highly grateful to Almighty Allah, the most beneficent, the most merciful, for giving us strength, courage, and resources to complete this research. We are sincerely obliged to IGIS-NUST for providing us platform of a knowledge base during the study period. We are very thankful to SUPARCO for cooperation and help in this research work. We acknowledge PMD (Pakistan) for the provision of data support for this paper.

 Compliance with ethical standards

 Conflict of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

 Citation:

  Gilany N, Iqbal J, and Ahmed A (2021). Simulation of glacial lake outburst flood hazard in Hunza valley of upper Indus Basin. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 8(1): 41-49

 Permanent Link to this page

 Figures

 Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5

 Tables

 Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 

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