[HOT] HOT: Glacial & landslide dammed lakes

Sam Inglis sam.inglis at gmail.com
Wed May 13 16:45:41 UTC 2015


Dear Steve,

I worked for Professor John Reynolds, the man who led the research which
revealed the instability of the dam at Tsho Rolpa. I have read about the
site extensively in his company archives, which was conducting research
there from at least 1998, to present I believe.

He is convinced that Tsho Rolpa is the far more dangerous of the two
majorly dangerous glacial lakes in Nepal, the other being Imja. I would
certainly encourage a very close examination of the region - in particular
there is an ice-core, which has been melting for some time, in the terminal
entraining moraine dam - if I remember correctly, it is at the southern end
(the terminus), under the northwestern section of the dam. If there is any
sign of water seeping from the dam itself, or any slumping in that
section...I would recommend some very drastic and rapid movements to get
people moving from downstream.

Any destabilisation of surrounding slopes, or cracking of the glacier snout
are other things to look out for.

I have loaded one of his many papers on the region, "*Glacial hazard
assessment at Tsho Rolpa, Rolwaling, Central Nepa*l", into my Google Drive
folder for your reference (
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3qRfjnIhqMhfm44dlZnM2x3Um1ia09mV2FwNHhLQmR2TDZKNVBaNFlyNENERkNZTkNmOU0&usp=sharing
).

​There are a large number of papers assessing the potential, identifying
what to look for, etc.

If you have specific questions, I'm always happy to help and, as suggested
before, would consider throwing together a quick handbook to help with
identification of the key risks.​

​Thanks,​


Sam Inglis MSc

<http://hk.linkedin.com/in/saminglis/>
<https://www.facebook.com/sam.inglis.92>
<https://twitter.com/the_ice_man_24>[image: +852 6036 8750]
<(+852)+6036+8750>[image: sam_urai_24] <sam_urai_24>

On 14 May 2015 at 00:25, Steve Bower <sbower at gmavt.net> wrote:

> Tsho Rolpa, northern Dolakha district, is another glacial lake renowned
> for having an unstable natural dam, putting thousands at risk downstream.
>
> http://www.bigmaybe.com/learn?s=Tsho_Rolpa
>
> Perhaps there is an existing assessment of natural dams at risk of failing.
>
> Steve
>
> On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 10:59 AM, Sam Inglis <sam.inglis at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> I agree totally, the hydropower issues are enormous - a very important
>> case study of the 1985 Dig Tsho glacial lake disaster, studied by Vuichard
>> & Zimmerman in 1987, revealed the destructive potential of Glacial Lake
>> Outburst Floods (GLOFs) and LLOFs.
>>
>> Please see via:
>> https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3qRfjnIhqMhfm44dlZnM2x3Um1ia09mV2FwNHhLQmR2TDZKNVBaNFlyNENERkNZTkNmOU0&authuser=0
>>
>> I would be happy to scan the satellite imagery for viable sites, but the
>> main issue is LLOFs (Landslide-dammed Lake Outburst Floods) in the
>> immediate future. In order to identify these, the HOT team needs to make
>> current satellite imagery available (my apologies if this has already been
>> done).
>>
>> I am also quite busy at the moment, and very sadly (selfishly) cannot
>> commit to mapping the situation in the next day or so. However, the key
>> things to be looking out for are* landslide-dammed lakes*. They are
>> highly destructive, enormously unstable, filled by glacial melt waters,
>> debris, rainwater, and anything else entrained by the waters, and very
>> deadly.
>>
>> These features form very rapidly - a 6km lake formed and burst within a
>> couple of days along the Sutlej River, due to a combination of internal
>> pressure (the river has a naturally high discharge rate), compounded by a
>> cloudburst.
>>
>> Also keep an eye out for shifting glaciers, as their migrations will
>> release sub- or englacial (internal) meltwater - the slipping of glaciers
>> down valley may have blocked sections of rivers, and would create very
>> dangerous situations.
>>
>> I could try and come up with a brief handbook on what to look out for, so
>> that the features can be identified, in the next 4 days? If this agreeable,
>> someone should just give me an idea of what the team needs, and I'll work
>> to spec!
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Sam Inglis MSc
>>
>> <http://hk.linkedin.com/in/saminglis/>
>> <https://www.facebook.com/sam.inglis.92>
>> <https://twitter.com/the_ice_man_24>[image: +852 6036 8750]
>> <(+852)+6036+8750>[image: sam_urai_24] <sam_urai_24>
>>
>> On 13 May 2015 at 14:36, amrit karmacharya <amrit.im at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> hi sam
>>>
>>> all of the hydropower plants in nepal are dependent on glacial rivers.
>>> is it possible to identify lake formation and bursting in the areas
>>> upstream of these powerplants? losing power source would be terrible.
>>> On 13 May 2015 04:44, "Robert Banick" <rbanick at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Sam,
>>>>
>>>> I think honestly you’re better placed to tell us how you can help than
>>>> the other way around. Most of us aren’t glacial lake experts :-)
>>>>
>>>> My first thought is that you can trace lakes in the affected areas into
>>>> OSM. The second would be to help us understand what, if any, risks can
>>>> result from lakes being dammed by landslides. Are there risks associated
>>>> with eventual bursts? Do we need to create data in OSM and then try to
>>>> model these risks in GIS software packages?
>>>>
>>>> You tell us!
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Robert
>>>>
>>>>>>>> Sent from Mailbox <https://www.dropbox.com/mailbox>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 2:10 AM, Sam Inglis <sam.inglis at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear HOT Team,
>>>>>
>>>>> My name is Sam Inglis, and my background is in glacial lake detection,
>>>>> identification and mapping, and was the first person to identify all
>>>>> glacial lakes in the North Patagonian Icefield, Chile. I am familiar with
>>>>> Himalayan mountain ranges, and studied large swathes of the Indo-Tibetan
>>>>> catchment of the Sutlej River, which runs from near Mt Kailash, transects
>>>>> Himachal Pradesh, and terminates in Pakistani territory.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have previously not engaged much in communal, open-source, reactive
>>>>> disaster mapping, but have been adding to the OSM database in Nepal
>>>>> sporadically over the past two weeks, when time has permitted.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yesterday, I saw that NASA had posted an article
>>>>> <http://was%20the%20first%20person%20to%20identify%20all%20glacial%20lakes%20in%20the%20North%20Patagonian%20Icefield,%20Chile,>
>>>>> on the formation of landslide-dammed lakes along Nepal's rivers, near
>>>>> Gorkha, and was wondering how I can best contribute to enhancing the
>>>>> understanding of the features? How can I help with such hazard detection &
>>>>> analysis?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks, and I look forward to hearing back from you and the team!
>>>>>
>>>>> Keep up the great work!
>>>>>
>>>>> Sam Inglis MSc
>>>>>
>>>>>  <http://hk.linkedin.com/in/saminglis/>
>>>>> <https://www.facebook.com/sam.inglis.92>
>>>>> <https://twitter.com/the_ice_man_24>[image: +852 6036 8750]
>>>>> <(+852)+6036+8750>[image: sam_urai_24] <sam_urai_24>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>
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>
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