[HOT] HOT: Glacial & landslide dammed lakes

Wed May 13 17:46:08 UTC 2015

Further to my previous . . .

Due to the high relief in the risk area, high off-nadir angle imagery may
be less useful.  There may be too much distortation or obscured areas.

On the other hand, are there other choices?

Cheers . . . . .   Spring
Samsung Tab 4
On May 13, 2015 9:49 AM, "Sam Inglis" <sam.inglis at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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