Date of Award

Spring 2025

Project Type

Dissertation

Program or Major

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

First Advisor

Jennifer M. Jacobs

Second Advisor

Joseph Licciardi

Third Advisor

Cameron Wake

Abstract

Glacial lakes are expanding rapidly due to accelerating glacier retreat, posing significant glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) hazards. Although remote sensing has enabled major advances in glacial lake mapping, considerable gaps persist, including inconsistent classification systems, the underrepresentation of small and transient lakes, and limited temporal resolution of optical imagery. This dissertation addresses these challenges through three interconnected studies focused on glacial lake mapping and dynamics in the Upper Indus Basin (UIB). It presents a comprehensive review of existing datasets and methodologies for glacial lake mapping, highlighting major advancements and persistent research gaps. Building on these insights, we develop an automated glacial lake mapping methodology using Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery, overcoming limitations of cloud-prone optical data. Applied to August 2023 SAR imagery, this approach resulted in an inventory of nearly 6,000 glacial lakes in the UIB, revealing the widespread occurrence of small supraglacial lakes (SGLs) absent in previous lake inventories. We further extended the analysis to seasonal dynamics of SGLs across six glaciers in the Karakoram. The findings reveal consistent patterns of peak lake formation in late spring and drainage over summer, with SGL formation and evolution linked to glacier surface slope, debris cover, and flow dynamics. Collectively, this research advances glacial lake mapping methods by demonstrating the utility of SAR imagery for high-temporal-resolution lake monitoring and contributes to the understanding of SGL seasonal dynamics.

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