Abstract:
Glaciers store the seventy five percent of world’s water and play an important role
in freshwater resources. But due to increase in temperature the glaciers are melting
worldwide. In Himalayan region of Pakistan, the glaciers are melting except a few
glaciers are not melting elsewhere such as in Karakoram range, which is referred to
as Karakoram anomaly. At local, regional, and global level fluctuations of glaciers
can be investigated. Therefore, different international organizations for the
assessment of glaciers have endorsed the idea of glacier inventory. According to
different studies despite the importance of HKH region this region is lacking in
glacier database. The objective of this study is to identify glaciers number and area
of each catchment, according to glacier inventories that compiled the glacier database
of HKH region (UIB) Pakistan. This study also identified the gaps and discrepancies
found in glacier inventories, and comparison of glacier inventories to determine
status of glaciers in HKH region (UIB) of Pakistan. The glacier inventories selected
for this study was ICIMOD glacier inventory (2005), PMD glacier inventory (2011),
WGI (2012), RGI (all versions), GLIMS glacier database (2021). The number and
area of glaciers of each catchment calculated according to each glacier inventory.
Moreover, all versions of RGI compared with each other in terms of glacier number
and area, and also compared the glacier database with each other submitted in
GLIMS inventory. The results of this study revealed that due to presence of
discrepancies in glacier database such as duplication of glacier IDs in GLIMS
database, and utilization of glacier outlines of other glacier inventory as in WGI, and
RGI utilized glacier outlines of previous versions, the status of glaciers in Pakistan
such as whether the glaciers number and area increasing or decreasing could not find
out. This study also suggested guidelines for future state of art glacier inventory for
HKH region Pakistan. This study recommended the compilation of glacier inventory
for HKH region of Pakistan thorough automated methods
