| Author | Mishra, Niti Bhushan |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.RS-07-5 |
| Subject(s) | Glaciers--Remote sensing--India--Himalaya Mountains
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| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Mass balance of valley glaciers is considered important indicator of climatic variability and change. Deglaciation because of climatic variability and change is considered world wide problem and is particularly significant in Indian Himalayas where the glacier and snow cover provides up to eighty percent of the seasonal flow to the Indus-Ganges-Brahmaputra river system. In this study mass balance related glaciological parameters have been determined using muti source and muti temporal satellite images of Chhota Shigri glacier, a benchmark glacier in Western Himalayas. Relationship between altitude and specific ablation at each stake is developed which is later applied on a ASTER DEM of Chhota Shigri area to estimate net mass balance and equilibtium line altitude (ELA). This estimated net mass balance is considered filed derived net mass balance. End of ablation satellite images of ASTER, IRS LISS III 1D and RESOURCESAT-1 AWiFS of corresponding hydrological years (2001-2006) have been later preprocessed to determine glaciological parameters such as snow line altitude (SLA), accumulation area ratio (AAR). Manual digitation was found to be accurate and feasible method for delineating one valley glacier compared to automated methods. ASTER images have been corrected for topographic effects while IRS LISS III 1D could not be corrected due to sensor saturation. Nine A WiFS images of 2005 melting season (August-September) were visually analyzed and by overlaying on DEM to determine the period the maximum snow line retreat. With the overall analysis of all satellite data the period of maximum snow line retreat for Chhota Shigri was estimated to be between August mid to September first week. Due to lack of ground training data, Visual interpretation aided with unsupervised classification was found to give best result for snow line interpretation. A generalized snow line altitude (SLA1 ) was determined which represented the spatial variability of snow pattern; another snow line altitude (SLA2 ) was also determined to represent only snow pixels. Finally field derived AAR and net mass balance is coupled with satellite derived parameters and linear regression relationship has been determined. SLA2 and its corresponding AAR2 were found to have good match with ELA. The relationships were later applied to estimate the mass balance for different years. |
| Year | 2007 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Engineering and Technology (SET) |
| Department | Department of Information and Communications Technologies (DICT) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Remote Sensing (RS) |
| Chairperson(s) | Honda, Kiyoshi; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Tripathi, Nitin K.;Surat Lertlum;Kulkarni, Anil V.; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | AIT fellowship; |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2007 |