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Glacier Volume Estimation Using Laminar-Flow and Volume–Area Scaling Techniques in the Chenab Basin

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Abstract

A proper estimate of glacier stored water is helpful to assess the long-term availability of water in any river basin. A method based on the laminar flow and volume–area scaling is used to estimate glacier stored water in the Chenab basin. Here, we used Landsat 8 images from 2015 to 2019 for the estimation of glacier surface velocity. The laminar flow technique needs surface velocity and slope of the glaciers, and other parameters which are assumed to be constants. The surface velocity of 223 glaciers was assessed by using the sub-pixel correlation technique, applied to Landsat 8 images. The slope was estimated using ASTER DEM. We calculated the average surface velocity and thickness as 11.12 ± 0.05 m a−1 and 54.56 ± 7.4 m, respectively, and the maximum ice thickness as 470 ± 63.9 m. Moreover, we have developed a volume–area scaling equation using laminar flow estimates and applied it to the remaining 1945 glaciers. The glacier-stored water estimated for 2168 Chenab glaciers covering 2519 ± 125.8 km2 area has been estimated as 145.61 ± 26.2 Gt. Our investigation provides decent estimates of glacier stored water, which helps to advance hydrological studies, thereby developing innovative mitigation strategies.

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Acknowledgements

This study was conducted in the Divecha Centre for Climate Change (DCCC), Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. We thank DST-Centre for Excellence in Climate Change and DCCC for providing the necessary funds and support to carry out this research. Veena Prasad was involved in data curation.

Funding

This study was financed by DST-Centre for Excellence in Climate Change and Divecha Centre for Climate Change (DCCC), Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

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  1. DST-Centre for Excellence in Climate Change, Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, 560 012, India

    J. S. Gopika, Anil V. Kulkarni & Veena Prasad

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  1. J. S. Gopika
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JSG was involved in conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing—original draft, visualization. AVK contributed to supervision, writing—review & editing, conceptualization, formal analysis.

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Correspondence to J. S. Gopika.

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Gopika, J.S., Kulkarni, A.V. & Prasad, V. Glacier Volume Estimation Using Laminar-Flow and Volume–Area Scaling Techniques in the Chenab Basin. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 51, 1809–1823 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-023-01744-7

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