Abstract
The China–Pakistan international Karakoram Highway passes through the core area of the “Karakoram Anomaly,” whose glaciers have maintained or increased their mass during a period when most glaciers worldwide have receded. We synthesized the literature and used remote-sensing techniques to review the types, distribution, characteristics, causes and frequency of major glacial hazards along the Karakoram Highway. We found that the glacier-related hazards could be divided into direct and indirect hazards, including glacier surges, glacial lake outburst floods, and glacial floods, which are concentrated in East Pamir and the Hunza River Basin. In the past 100 years, hazards from glaciers surges and glacial floods only occurred once and twice, respectively, which appear suddenly, with the hazard-causing process being short-lived and occurring mainly in the summer. Glacial lake outburst floods mainly occur in the spring and summer in the Hunza River Basin. Among these, ice-dammed lakes have the highest frequency of flooding, their formation and outbursts being closely related to the sudden advancement of surge-type glaciers. Under the background of global climate warming, we speculate that the glacier surge cycle may shorten and the frequency of the formation and outbursts in the glacial lakes may increase. In the future, we should combine models and new field observations to simulate, and deepen our understanding of the physical mechanisms of different glacier-related hazards. In particular, on-site monitoring should be carried out, to include the evolution of glaciers subglacial hydrological systems, the thermal state at the base of the glaciers, and the opening and closing of drainage channels at the base of the ice dams.
Highlights
Any glacier or glacier-related feature or process that adversely affects human activities, directly or indirectly, can be regarded as a glacier hazard, which mainly includes glacial floods, glacial debris flows, glacier collapse and glacier surges, and avalanches (Reynolds, 1992; Richardson and Reynolds, 2000; Qin, 2016)
With the intensification of global warming, the accelerated melting of glaciers and an increasing frequency of Glacier Surges (GSs) will likely result in the frequent occurrence of glacier-related hazards along the KKH, which will seriously threaten the safe operation of the highway and the lives and productivity of the residents living along the route
We combed through the literature and used remote-sensing interpretations and other means to determine that the glacier-related hazards along the KKH mainly relate to GSs and GLOFs
Summary
Any glacier or glacier-related feature or process that adversely affects human activities, directly or indirectly, can be regarded as a glacier hazard, which mainly includes glacial floods, glacial debris flows, glacier collapse and glacier surges, and avalanches (Reynolds, 1992; Richardson and Reynolds, 2000; Qin, 2016). Destroyed subgrade and overturned an abutment Destroyed road subgrade, bridges and culverts Buried 400 m of road Flooded friendship bridge and disrupted traffic Destroyed downstream pasu village and highway Disrupted traffic for two weeks Formed an ice-dammed lake and destroyed the road Destroyed pasture houses and threatened highways
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