Remote sensing of alpine lake water environment changes on the Tibetan Plateau and surroundings: A review

Abstract

Alpine lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are key indicators of climate change and climate variability. The increasing availability of remote sensing techniques with appropriate spatiotemporal resolutions, broad coverage and low costs allows for effective monitoring lake changes on the TP and surroundings and understanding climate change impacts, particularly in remote and inaccessible areas where there are lack of in situ observations. This paper firstly introduces characteristics of Tibetan lakes, and outlines available satellite observation platforms and different remote sensing water-body extraction algorithms. Then, this paper reviews advances in applying remote sensing methods for various lake environment monitoring, including lake surface extent and water level, glacial lake and potential outburst floods, lake ice phenology, geological or geomorphologic evidences of lake basins, with a focus on the trends and magnitudes of lake area and water-level change and their spatially and temporally heterogeneous patterns. Finally we discuss current uncertainties or accuracy of detecting lake area and water-level changes from multi-source satellite data and on-going challenges in mapping characteristics of glacial lakes using remote sensing. Based on previous studies on the relationship between lake variation and climate change, it is inferred that the climate-driven mechanisms of lake variations on the TP still remain unclear and require further research.