ABSTRACT:

The study is towards the preparation of a glacial lake inventory for Arunachal Pradesh and a critical analysis of 40 years temporal change in the lake area along with the long-term change of temperature and precipitation, the characteristics of glacial lake outburst probability and the hazard assessment and the relationship between glacial lakes and climate change. Results showed that there was an obvious increase in the temperature of the basin since 1970. Specifically, in the mountainous area, the significantly increasing temperature in the summer and autumn seasons accelerated the melting rate of glaciers and the formation of a glacial lake. With the use of LANDSAT (1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8) datasets from 1973-2013, Google earth imagery of various data and Toposheets from SOI the glacial lake inventory was created. In Arunachal Pradesh, the number of glacier lakes increased by 142 between 1970 and 2013. The rate of area change in glacial lakes over the years varies as high as 1000% in the time span of 1970-2013, and almost 370% in the time span of 1980-2013 and 2001-2013. Decade wise analysis shows that the highest number of lakes and higher amount of area change over 40 years is found in the zone 4000-4500 m. Based on remote sensing techniques only with topographic analysis viz. elevation, slope, aspect, the curvature of lakes derived from ASTER DEM data, 33 lakes were considered critical and 28 lakes potentially critical in Arunachal Pradesh after the Hazard assessment of the glacial lake inventory. The evaluation and classification of the outburst probabilities of glacial lakes by remote sensing are challenging and different approaches have been presented in many literatures. The approach present in this study is efficient for analyzing a large number of lakes that need further quantitative assessment. In addition to the rise in temperature and extreme climatic conditions observed since 2000, the glacier lakes associated with the glacier melting are increasing in number and size and to some extent, the potential of glacial lake outburst floods increases. Thereby, persistent attention should be paid to the influences of climatic change in the region and future disaster preparedness by authorities and locals.