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Abstract

Cryosphere-related hazards are a growing but largely neglected threat for rural settlements, agrarian land use and local livelihoods in the cold-arid Trans-Himalaya. Despite the growing number of studies on cryosphere-related hazards, the occurrence, frequency and magnitude of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are almost entirely overlooked for the region of Ladakh. Due to the small size and high elevational location of glaciers above 5200 m a.s.l. also the glacial lakes are of small size. In the recent past several GLOF events occurred which destroyed infrastructure and agricultural area. It becomes obvious that even these small glacial lakes might be a permanent threat for local livelihoods and socioeconomic development. This is even more problematic as the number and size of lakes has significantly increased over the past decades. A comprehensive inventory of glacial lakes for the entire Trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh was carried out. This includes several almost permanently ice-covered high altitude lakes. Changes in the extent and number of glacial lakes have been quantified since 1969 in order to assess the potential threat of future GLOFs in the region. The lake development of selected former reported GLOF events and disappeared glacial lakes were analysed in detail to reconstruct lake level changes which possibly indicate earlier GLOF events. Based on high temporal resolution remote sensing data, a sophisticated monitoring concept needs to be realized to indicate the development of short-lived lakes on glaciers or on debris landforms with buried ice or fast glacial lake growth.