Reconstruction and Characterisation of Past and the Most Recent Slope Failure Events at the 2021 Rock-Ice Avalanche Site in Chamoli, Indian Himalaya

Anshuman Bhardwaj; Lydia Sam

doi:10.3390/rs14040949

Reconstruction and Characterisation of Past and the Most Recent Slope Failure Events at the 2021 Rock-Ice Avalanche Site in Chamoli, Indian Himalaya

Anshuman Bhardwaj^* (Corresponding Author), Lydia Sam

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

6 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Frequent ice avalanche events are being reported across the globe in recent years. On the 7 February 2021, a flash flood triggered by a rock-ice avalanche with an unusually long runout distance, caused significant damage of life and property in the Tapovan region of the Indian Himalaya. Using multi-temporal satellite datasets, digital terrain models (DTMs) and simulations, here we report the pre-event and during-event flow characteristics of two large-scale avalanches within a 5-year interval at the slope failure site. Prior to both the events, we observed short-term and long-term changes in surface velocity (SV) with maximum SVs increasing up to over 5 times the normal values. We further simulated the events to understand their mechanical characteristics leading to long runouts. In addition to its massive volume, the extraordinary magnitude of the 2021 event can partly be attributed to the possible remobilisation and entrainment of the colluvial deposits from previous ice and snow avalanches. The anomalous SVs should be explored further for their suitability as a possible remotely observable precursor of ice avalanches from hanging glaciers. This sequence of events highlights that there is a need to take into account the antecedent conditions, while making a holistic assessment of the hazard.

Original language	English
Article number	949
Number of pages	32
Journal	Remote Sensing
Volume	14
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14040949
Publication status	Published - 16 Feb 2022

Bibliographical note

This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Remote Sensing in Glaciology

Funding
This research was funded from the Interdisciplinary Pump Priming Fund (grants nos.: SF10237-19 and SF10206-67) and Global Challenge Research Internal Funds (grant no.: SF10206-78) granted by the University of Aberdeen, U.K., and the Scottish Funding Council.

Acknowledgments
We acknowledge NASA, USGS, ESA, Planet Labs, and previous studies [36,40] for providing free-of-cost medium-to-high resolution satellite images and DTMs. We acknowledge the support provided by RAMMS Team at the Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, Davos, Graubünden, in offering the RAMMS tool. We thank the reviewers for their constructive suggestions, which improved the quality of this paper.

Data Availability Statement

All the data used in this study is available free-of-cost in open access and the data sources have been cited. The simulation graphics have been provided as the Supplementary Materials.

Keywords

ice avalanche
co-registration of optically sensed images and correlation (COSI-Corr)
movement mechanics
Himalaya
Chamoli
debris flow
rapid mass movement simulation (RAMMS)
glacier velocity
high mountain
disaster
hazard sequence
mass movement mechanics

Access to Document

10.3390/rs14040949Licence: CC BY

Bhardwaj_etal_RS_recostruction_and_characterisation_VOR
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).
Final published version, 25.2 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Reconstruction and Characterisation of Past and the Most Recent Slope Failure Events at the 2021 Rock-Ice Avalanche Site in Chamoli, Indian Himalaya",

abstract = "Frequent ice avalanche events are being reported across the globe in recent years. On the 7 February 2021, a flash flood triggered by a rock-ice avalanche with an unusually long runout distance, caused significant damage of life and property in the Tapovan region of the Indian Himalaya. Using multi-temporal satellite datasets, digital terrain models (DTMs) and simulations, here we report the pre-event and during-event flow characteristics of two large-scale avalanches within a 5-year interval at the slope failure site. Prior to both the events, we observed short-term and long-term changes in surface velocity (SV) with maximum SVs increasing up to over 5 times the normal values. We further simulated the events to understand their mechanical characteristics leading to long runouts. In addition to its massive volume, the extraordinary magnitude of the 2021 event can partly be attributed to the possible remobilisation and entrainment of the colluvial deposits from previous ice and snow avalanches. The anomalous SVs should be explored further for their suitability as a possible remotely observable precursor of ice avalanches from hanging glaciers. This sequence of events highlights that there is a need to take into account the antecedent conditions, while making a holistic assessment of the hazard.",

keywords = "ice avalanche, co-registration of optically sensed images and correlation (COSI-Corr), movement mechanics, Himalaya, Chamoli, debris flow, rapid mass movement simulation (RAMMS), glacier velocity, high mountain, disaster, hazard sequence, mass movement mechanics",

author = "Anshuman Bhardwaj and Lydia Sam",

note = "This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Remote Sensing in Glaciology Funding This research was funded from the Interdisciplinary Pump Priming Fund (grants nos.: SF10237-19 and SF10206-67) and Global Challenge Research Internal Funds (grant no.: SF10206-78) granted by the University of Aberdeen, U.K., and the Scottish Funding Council. Acknowledgments We acknowledge NASA, USGS, ESA, Planet Labs, and previous studies [36,40] for providing free-of-cost medium-to-high resolution satellite images and DTMs. We acknowledge the support provided by RAMMS Team at the Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, Davos, Graub{\"u}nden, in offering the RAMMS tool. We thank the reviewers for their constructive suggestions, which improved the quality of this paper.",

year = "2022",

month = feb,

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doi = "10.3390/rs14040949",

language = "English",

volume = "14",

journal = "Remote Sensing",

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AU - Bhardwaj, Anshuman

AU - Sam, Lydia

N1 - This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Remote Sensing in Glaciology Funding This research was funded from the Interdisciplinary Pump Priming Fund (grants nos.: SF10237-19 and SF10206-67) and Global Challenge Research Internal Funds (grant no.: SF10206-78) granted by the University of Aberdeen, U.K., and the Scottish Funding Council. Acknowledgments We acknowledge NASA, USGS, ESA, Planet Labs, and previous studies [36,40] for providing free-of-cost medium-to-high resolution satellite images and DTMs. We acknowledge the support provided by RAMMS Team at the Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, Davos, Graubünden, in offering the RAMMS tool. We thank the reviewers for their constructive suggestions, which improved the quality of this paper.

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N2 - Frequent ice avalanche events are being reported across the globe in recent years. On the 7 February 2021, a flash flood triggered by a rock-ice avalanche with an unusually long runout distance, caused significant damage of life and property in the Tapovan region of the Indian Himalaya. Using multi-temporal satellite datasets, digital terrain models (DTMs) and simulations, here we report the pre-event and during-event flow characteristics of two large-scale avalanches within a 5-year interval at the slope failure site. Prior to both the events, we observed short-term and long-term changes in surface velocity (SV) with maximum SVs increasing up to over 5 times the normal values. We further simulated the events to understand their mechanical characteristics leading to long runouts. In addition to its massive volume, the extraordinary magnitude of the 2021 event can partly be attributed to the possible remobilisation and entrainment of the colluvial deposits from previous ice and snow avalanches. The anomalous SVs should be explored further for their suitability as a possible remotely observable precursor of ice avalanches from hanging glaciers. This sequence of events highlights that there is a need to take into account the antecedent conditions, while making a holistic assessment of the hazard.

AB - Frequent ice avalanche events are being reported across the globe in recent years. On the 7 February 2021, a flash flood triggered by a rock-ice avalanche with an unusually long runout distance, caused significant damage of life and property in the Tapovan region of the Indian Himalaya. Using multi-temporal satellite datasets, digital terrain models (DTMs) and simulations, here we report the pre-event and during-event flow characteristics of two large-scale avalanches within a 5-year interval at the slope failure site. Prior to both the events, we observed short-term and long-term changes in surface velocity (SV) with maximum SVs increasing up to over 5 times the normal values. We further simulated the events to understand their mechanical characteristics leading to long runouts. In addition to its massive volume, the extraordinary magnitude of the 2021 event can partly be attributed to the possible remobilisation and entrainment of the colluvial deposits from previous ice and snow avalanches. The anomalous SVs should be explored further for their suitability as a possible remotely observable precursor of ice avalanches from hanging glaciers. This sequence of events highlights that there is a need to take into account the antecedent conditions, while making a holistic assessment of the hazard.

KW - ice avalanche

KW - co-registration of optically sensed images and correlation (COSI-Corr)

KW - movement mechanics

KW - Himalaya

KW - Chamoli

KW - debris flow

KW - rapid mass movement simulation (RAMMS)

KW - glacier velocity

KW - high mountain

KW - disaster

KW - hazard sequence

KW - mass movement mechanics

U2 - 10.3390/rs14040949

DO - 10.3390/rs14040949

M3 - Article

SN - 2072-4292

VL - 14

JO - Remote Sensing

JF - Remote Sensing

IS - 4

M1 - 949

ER -

Reconstruction and Characterisation of Past and the Most Recent Slope Failure Events at the 2021 Rock-Ice Avalanche Site in Chamoli, Indian Himalaya

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

Keywords

Access to Document

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Cite this