@article{Dubey2023,

title = {Mass Movement Hazard and Exposure in the Himalaya},

author = {Saket Dubey and Ashim Sattar and Manish Kumar Goyal and Simon Allen and Holger Frey and Umesh K. Haritashya and Christian Huggel},

url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022EF003253 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2022EF003253 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EF003253},

doi = {10.1029/2022EF003253},

issn = {2328-4277},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-01-01},

journal = {Earth's Future},

volume = {11},

issue = {9},

pages = {e2022EF003253},

publisher = {John Wiley & Sons, Ltd},

abstract = {Himalaya is experiencing frequent catastrophic mass movement events such as avalanches and landslides, causing loss of human lives and infrastructure. Millions of people reside in critical zones potentially exposed to such catastrophes. Despite this, a comprehensive assessment of mass movement exposure is lacking at a regional scale. Here, we developed a novel method of determining mass movement trajectories and applied it to the Himalayan Mountain ranges for the first time to quantify the exposure of infrastructure, waterways, roadways, and population in six mountain ranges, including Hindu Kush, Karakoram, western Himalaya, eastern Himalaya, central Himalaya, and Hengduan Shan. Our results reveal that the exposure of buildings and roadways to mass movements is highest in Karakoram, whereas central Himalaya has the highest exposed waterways. The hotspots of exposed roadways are concentrated in Nepal, the North Indian states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, the Union Territory of Ladakh, and China's Sichuan Province. Our analysis shows that the population in the central Himalaya is currently at the highest exposure to mass movement impacts. Projected future populations based on Shared Socio-economic and Representative Concentration Pathways suggest that changing settlement patterns and emission scenarios will significantly influence the potential impact of these events on the human population. Assessment of anticipated secondary hazards (glacial lake outburst floods) shows an increase in probable headward impacts of mass movements on glacial lakes in the future. Our findings will support researchers, policymakers, stakeholders, and local governments in identifying critical areas that require detailed investigation for risk reduction and mitigation.},

keywords = {avalanche, Exposure, future hazard, Himalaya, landslides, mass movement},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Mal2021c,

title = {Sectorwise Assessment of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Danger in the Indian Himalayan Region},

author = {Suraj Mal and Simon K. Allen and Holger Frey and Christian Huggel and A. P. Dimri},

url = {https://bioone.org/journals/mountain-research-and-development/volume-41/issue-1/MRD-JOURNAL-D-20-00043.1/Sectorwise-Assessment-of-Glacial-Lake-Outburst-Flood-Danger-in-the/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-20-00043.1.full https://bioone.org/journals/mountain-research-and-development/volume-41/issue-1/MRD-JOURNAL-D-20-00043.1/Sectorwise-Assessment-of-Glacial-Lake-Outburst-Flood-Danger-in-the/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-20-00043.1.short},

doi = {10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-20-00043.1},

issn = {0276-4741},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-05-01},

journal = {Mountain Research and Development},

volume = {41},

number = {1},

pages = {R1},

publisher = {International Mountain Society},

abstract = {Climate change and associated glacier recession have led to the formation of new glacial lakes and the expansion of existing ones across the Himalayas. Many pose a potential glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) threat to downstream communities and infrastructure. In this paper, 4418 glacial lakes in the Indian Himalayan Region and 636 transboundary lakes are analyzed. We consider hazard, exposure, and integrated danger levels using robust geographic information system-based automated approaches. The hazard level of lakes was estimated based on the potential for avalanches to strike the lake, size of the lake and its upstream watershed, and distal slope of its dam. Exposure levels were calculated by intersecting cropland, roads, hydropower projects, and the human population with potential GLOF trajectories. Then, GLOF danger was determined as a function of hazard and exposure. The study demonstrates that Jammu and Kashmir (JK) is potentially the most threatened region in terms of total number of very high and high danger lakes (n = 556), followed by Arunachal Pradesh (AP) (n = 388) and Sikkim (SK) (n = 219). Sectorwise, JK faces the greatest GLOF threat to roads and population, whereas the threat to cropland and hydropower is greatest in AP and SK, respectively. Transboundary lakes primarily threaten AP and, to a lesser extent, Himachal Pradesh (HP). For Uttarakhand (UK), the impacts of potential future glacial lakes, expected to form during rapid ongoing glacier recession because of climate change, are explored. Finally, a comparison of current results with previous studies suggests that 13 lakes in SK, 5 in HP, 4 in JK, 2 in UK, and 1 in AP are of highest priority for local investigation and potential risk reduction measures. Current results are of vital importance to policymakers, disaster management authorities, and the scientific community.},

keywords = {Exposure, glacial lake outburst floods, Hazard, hydropower, indian himalayas, transboundary threats},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Munoz-TorreroManchado2021,

title = {Three decades of landslide activity in western Nepal: new insights into trends and climate drivers},

author = {A Muñoz-Torrero Manchado and S Allen and J A Ballesteros-Cánovas and A Dhakal and M R Dhital and M Stoffel},

url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10346-021-01632-6},

doi = {10.1007/s10346-021-01632-6},

issn = {1612-510X},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-02-01},

journal = {Landslides},

pages = {1--15},

publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media LLC},

abstract = {In recent decades, landslide disasters in the Himalayas, as in other mountain regions, are widely reported to have increased. While some studies have suggested a link to increasing heavy rainfall under a warmer climate, others pointed to anthropogenic influences on slope stability, and increasing exposure of people and assets located in harm's way. A lack of sufficiently high-resolution regional landslide inventories, both spatially and temporally, has prevented any robust consensus so far. Focusing on Far-Western Nepal, we draw on remote sensing techniques to create a regional inventory of 26,350 single landslide events, of which 8778 date to the period 1992–2018. These events serve as a basis for the analyses of landslide frequency relationships and trends in relation to precipitation and temperature datasets. Results show a strong correlation between the annual number of shallow landslides and the accumulated monsoon precipitation ( r = 0.74). Furthermore, warm and dry monsoons followed by especially rainy monsoons produce the highest incidence of shallow landslides ( r = 0.77). However, we find strong spatial variability in the strength of these relationships, which is linked to recent demographic development in the region. This highlights the role of anthropogenic drivers, and in particular road cutting and land-use change, in amplifying the seasonal monsoon influence on slope stability. In parallel, the absence of any long-term trends in landslide activity, despite widely reported increase in landslide disasters, points strongly to increasing exposure of people and infrastructure as the main driver of landslide disasters in this region of Nepal. By contrast, no climate change signal is evident from the data.},

keywords = {Anthropogenic drivers, Exposure, Hazard, landslides, remote sensing, Trends},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Allen2019,

title = {Potentially dangerous glacial lakes across the Tibetan Plateau revealed using a large-scale automated assessment approach},

author = {Simon Keith Allen and Guoqing Zhang and Weicai Wang and Tandong Yao and Tobias Bolch},

doi = {10.1016/j.scib.2019.03.011},

issn = {20959281},

year  = {2019},

date = {2019-04-01},

journal = {Science Bulletin},

volume = {64},

number = {7},

pages = {435--445},

publisher = {Elsevier B.V.},

abstract = {Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are a major concern in the Himalaya and on the Tibetan Plateau (TP), where several disasters occurring over the past century have caused significant loss of life and damage to infrastructure. This study responds directly to the needs of local authorities to provide guidance on the most dangerous glacial lakes across TP where local monitoring and other risk reduction strategies can subsequently be targeted. Specifically, the study aims to establish a first comprehensive prioritisation ranking of lake danger for TP, considering both the likelihood and possible magnitude of any outburst event (hazard), and the exposure of downstream communities. A composite inventory of 1,291 glacial lakes (textgreater0.1 km 2 ) was derived from recent remote sensing studies, and a fully automated and object assessment scheme was implemented using customised GIS tools. Based on four core determinates of GLOF hazard (lake size, watershed area, topographic potential for ice/rock avalanching, and dam steepness), the scheme accurately distinguishes the high to very high hazard level of 19 out of 20 lakes that have previously generated GLOFs. Notably, 16% of all glacial lakes threaten human settlements, with a hotspot of GLOF danger identified in the central Himalayan counties of Jilong, Nyalam, and Dingri, where the potential trans-boundary threat to communities located downstream in Nepal is also recognised. The results provide an important and object scientific basis for decision-making, and the methodological approach is ideally suited for replication across other mountainous regions where such first-order studies are lacking.},

keywords = {Danger, Exposure, GLOF, Hazard, Himalaya, Tibetan Plateau},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}