Abstract:
Glaciers of Hindukush, Karakoram, and Himalaya (HKH), provides the freshwater to Pakistan’s river system. The study area includes some part of Karakoram Highway which is part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Therefore this area includes the immense importance in economic sector for both countries, i.e. Pakistan and China. The current study provides remote sensing and geographic information system approach for the assessment of glacier cover change along KKH. To assess the temporal change supervised classification was performed in ArcMap. In order to study the GLOF of Passu Lake phenomenon HEC GeoRas and HEC-RAS 5.0.5 model was used. Primary input for HEC-RAS model was DEM. SRTM DEM was used with 30m resolution, and hydrological data of Passu Lake was acquired from Glacier Monitoring and Research Centre (GMRC). HEC-RAS 2D unsteady flow model was used in this study. Results of glacier change maps illustrated notable decrease of almost 3.5 % glacier cover over the period of 23 years. Change detection was also cross-check by GLIMS glacier boundary. Results of this comparison show that Batura, Passu and Gulmit glaciers have been decreased to 0.596, 0.23 and 0.05km respectively from the year of 1999 to 2017. Ghulkin glacier has been increased to 0.157km. HEC-RAS 2D unsteady flow model was run for Passu Lake flood assessment. Comparisons of datasets were done in this study. 2D storage area was used for flood modeling. Results showed that flood area is increased in self-assumed data. Change in flooded area has been observed in each class, in low class area has been decreased to 2.99%, and in medium and high class area has been increased to 1.16% and 1.82% respectively. This study can be helpful for hazard mitigation organizations. This study can be further applied in other study area and datasets.
