Inventory and Spatial Distribution of Glacial Lakes in Arunachal Pradesh, Eastern Himalaya, India

Abstract

The present study generates a glacial lake inventory of Arunachal Pradesh, Eastern Himalaya, India using Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) images (2016-2018). The study reveals that there are in total 1532 (> 0.001 km2) glacial lakes, covering an area of 93.7 km2. Glacier erosion lakes are the most dominant type with 1268 glacial lakes (82.8%) and an area of 76.8 km2 (∼82%). About 50% of the lakes are located in the four districts of eastern Arunachal Pradesh, while ∼16% in the three districts of central and ∼33% in the four districts of western Arunachal Pradesh. The western Arunachal Pradesh has mixed patterns of glacial lakes types, whereas the erosion lakes dominate the eastern and central Arunachal Pradesh. The current inventory can serve as a baseline database for understanding glacial lake-related flood hazard studies in Arunachal Pradesh.