Himalayan glacier thickness mapper (HIGTHIM) tool: An automated approach to map potential glacier lakes and expansion of existing lakes

Abstract

Climate warming is the driving force behind the mass change of glaciers, resulting in their thinning and retreat. These changes could result in the formation of glacial lakes across the Himalayan landscape, posing a risk of glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) hazards, causing enormous damage to the natural environment, human property, and lives. The present study demonstrates a semi-automated tool named 'Himalayan Glacier Thickness Mapper' (HIGTHIM), a Python script based on the ArcPy module. The tool provides the glacier's ice thickness, bed topography, location of the potential lake, and lake volume. It utilizes the laminar flow equation to model ice thickness by applying the surface velocity and slope. We used HIGTHIM in the Sutlej and Beas basins for 132 glaciers covering an area of 618 km² in the Western Himalaya for this investigation. The results indicate 118 potential lake sites covering a total area of 16 km² and a volume of 269 × 10⁶ m³. The information provided by the HIGTHIM tool will be useful in understanding the formation and progression of future glacial lakes caused by deglaciation. Such data is required for the scientific community to perform dynamic modelling of outburst scenarios, hydrological modelling, and risk mitigation from GLOF.