Recent variations of the Batura, Pasu, and Ghulkin glaciers and their potential impact on the Karakoram highway
Received date: 2022-05-01
Revised date: 2022-07-12
Online published: 2023-01-17
The Karakoram highway (KKH) is a strategic channel connecting China and Pakistan and promoting the opening up of Xinjiang to the outside world. It is situated on the valley floors of the Pamir-Hindu Kush-Karakoram, where the densest mountain glaciers exist in High Mountain Asia (HMA). The KKH has been affected by glacier hazards for a long time, especially the Batura-Ghulkin section in the middle reaches of the Hunza River. In this study, based on the research documents, field investigation reports, Landsat MSS\TM\ETM+\OLI images, elevation change data sets of HMA, and ITS_LIVE glacier surface velocity data, we reconstructed the historical changes of the Batura, Pasu, and Ghulkin glaciers, including the glacier area, surface elevation, surface velocity, and meltwater runoff over the last 100 years, as well as the impact of glacier variations on KKH. The results show that over the past 100 years, the Batura and Pasu glaciers have generally retreated, with the distance increased between the glacier tongue and KKH, while the Ghulkin glacier has remained stable. Therefore, for the KKH, the current changes in the Batura and Pasu glaciers pose no direct threat. As the Ghulkin glacier is too close to the KKH, particularly the northern glacier tongue, which is only about 170 m, the direct threat to the highway will persist for a long time. For the Batura glacier, the more realistic threat is the migration and reorganization of the meltwater runoff drainage channel (Batura River) from June to July 2021. After the diversion, the water flow will cause strong erosion of the roadbed, which must be attended to by the government. The Pasu glacier has been retreating strongly in the past decades, and the risk of large-scale glacial lake outburst flood has also decreased recently, so the glacier hazard’s threat to the KKH is weakening. With the construction of drainage facilities, the meltwater runoff of the Ghulkin Glacier has been effectively channeled, but the disaster risk contained in the migration and swing of the meltwater channel can not be ignored.
Key words： Karakoram highway; Batura glaciers; meltwater runoff; glacier hazards
LI Zhijie,WANG Ninglian,CHANG Jiawen . Recent variations of the Batura, Pasu, and Ghulkin glaciers and their potential impact on the Karakoram highway[J]. Arid Zone Research, 2022 , 39(6) : 1986 -1995 . DOI: 10.13866/j.azr.2022.06.28
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