Glacier Lake Outburst Floods
What are Glacial Lake Outburst Floods?
A Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) is a catastrophic release of water from a glacier lake, i.e. a water reservoir that has formed either at the side, in front, within, beneath or on the surface of a glacier. The dam that impounds the water body may be composed primarily of debris, bedrock or glacial ice.
How Do Ice-Dammed Lakes Form?
Ice-dammed lakes can develop at the margin of an advancing glacier, when side-valleys or depressions at the side of the glacier become blocked. Many such lakes formed during past Ice Ages. Some ice-dammed glacier lakes form and drain repeatedly. For instance, Lake Merzbacher in Kyrgyzstan, which drains annually, is one of the most studied ice-dammed lakes globally. As glaciers retreat, ice dam support is removed, leading to catastrophic drainage or trapping of lakes behind moraines left by glaciers. The 2013 GLOF disaster in Kedarnath, India, involved such a moraine-dammed lake failure.
Outbursts from Supraglacial, Subglacial, and Other Lakes
Outbursts from lakes at the surface (supraglacial), within, or beneath glaciers have been documented worldwide, often triggered by heavy rainfall or enhanced melt during warm weather. In the Tien Shan region, frequent monitoring is critical for identifying rapidly evolving dangerous situations. In Central Asia, such dynamic lakes, known as “non-stationary” lakes, present unique challenges for early warning and response strategies.
Formation of Moraine-Dammed Lakes
The retreat of mountain glaciers over the past century has led to the formation of many moraine-dammed lakes. Some of these lakes are enormous, with volumes up to 100 million m³ and depths exceeding 200 meters. The steep, unstable moraines may contain thawing ice, making them prone to failure. Intense rain, snowmelt, landslides, or earthquakes can trigger GLOFs from these lakes. Tsunami waves caused by landslides into lakes can also overtop moraine dams, leading to floods without destroying the dam itself, leaving a threat of secondary events.
For lakes dammed by solid rock, tsunami waves are the only mechanism by which a catastrophic flood may be initiated, as the dam structures themselves are considered stable.
Characteristics of GLOFs
Once initiated, GLOFs tend to mobilise large amounts of debris and can transport massive boulders, particularly in the steep river sections. This is particularly true for floods from moraine dammed lakes, which frequently transform into debris or mud flows. Several transitions of these flow types, depending on the steepness and therefore erosive power of the river, are typical for GLOFs .
Importantly,GLOFs typically produce discharge values, erosive forces and hence also impacts that are far greater than normal seasonal floods. However, unlike seasonal floods, GLOFs tend to rapidly lose their power downstream which has implications for potential impacts and losses on the lowlands. Nevertheless, flood paths extending up to hundred kilometers and even more have been observed, including events involving more than one country (transboundary GLOFs), while secondary hazards can occur owing to erosion of river banks,blocking of river channels and impacts into downstream lakes.
Future Risks and the Need for Mitigation
Given potential future expansion of lakes as the climate warms and glaciers melt, and the rapidly increasing exposure of residential, tourism, transport, and hydropower infrastructure higher into the alpine valleys, a significant increase in future GLOF risk is anticipated globally. Therefore, robust scientific assessments are urgently needed to underpin the design of response and mitigation strategies by national- and regional stakeholders.
This text is a plain-language summary of the paragraph of GLOFs from the GAPHAZ guidelines. GAPHAZ 2017: Assessment of Glacier and Permafrost Hazards in Mountain Regions – Technical Guidance Document. Prepared by Allen, S., Frey, H., Huggel, C. et al. Standing Group on Glacier and Permafrost Hazards in Mountains (GAPHAZ) of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) and the International Permafrost Association (IPA). Zurich, Switzerland / Lima, Peru, 72 pp.
Suggested Readings
Allen, S. K., Linsbauer, A., Randhawa, S. S., Huggel, C., Rana, P. and Kumari, A.: Glacial lake outburst flood risk in Himachal Pradesh, India: an integrative and anticipatory approach considering current and future threats, Nat. Hazards, 84(3), 1741–1763, doi:10.1007/s11069-016-2511-x, 2016.
Benn, D. I., Bolch, T., Hands, K., Gulley, J., Luckman, A., Nicholson, L. I., Quincey, D., Thompson, S., Toumi, R. and Wiseman, S.: Response of debris-covered glaciers in the Mount Everest region to recent warming, and implications for outburst flood hazards., Earth Sci. Rev., 114, 156–174, 2012.
Carey, M., Huggel, C., Bury, J., Portocarrero, C. and Haeberli, W.: An integrated socio-environmental framework for glacier hazard management and climate change adaptation: lessons from Lake 513, Cordillera Blanca, Peru, Clim. Change, 112, 733–767, 2012.
Cenderelli, D. A. and Wohl, E. E.: Flow hydraulics and geomorphic effects of glacial-lake outburst floods in the Mount Everest region, Nepal, Earth Surf. Process. Landforms, 28(4), 385–407, doi:10.1002/esp.448, 2003.
Emmer, Adam & Mergili, Martin & Veh, Georg. Glacial Lake Outburst Floods: Geomorphological Agents and Hazardous Phenomena. 10.1016/B978-0-12-818234-5.00057-2, 2021.
Frey H, Haeberli W, Linsbauer A, Huggel C, Paul F.: A multi-level strategy for anticipating future glacier lake formation and associated hazard potentials. Natural Hazards and Earth System Science 10:339–352., 2010.
Frey, Holger: Glacier lake outburst floods. In: Richardson, Douglas; Castree, Noel; Goodchild, Michael F; Kobayashi, Audrey; Liu, Weidong; Marston, Richard A. (Eds.) The international encyclopedia of geography: people, the earth, environment, and technology, 2017.
Huggel, C., Haeberli, W., Kääb, A., Bieri, D. and Richardson, S.: An assessment procedure for glacial hazards in the Swiss Alps, Can. Geotech. J., 41, 1068–1083, 2004a.
Kargel, J., Leonard, G., Shugar, D. H., Haritashya, U. K., Bevinton, A. and Fielding, E. J.: Geomorphic and geologic controls of geohazards induced by Nepal’s 2015 Gorkha earthquake, Science (80-. )., 351, doi:10.1126/science.aac8353, 2016.
Narama, C., Duishonakunov, M., Kääb, A., Daiyrov, M. and Abdrakhmatov, K.: The 24 July 2008 outburst flood at the western Zyndan glacier lake and recent regional changes in glacier lakes of the Teskey Ala-Too range, Tien Shan, Kyrgyzstan, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 10(4), 647–659, 2010.
Narama, C., Daiyrov, M., Tadono, T., Yamamoto, M., Kääb, A., Morita, R., Ukita, J. and Shan, T.: Seasonal drainage of supraglacial lakes on debris-covered glaciers in the Tien Shan Mountains, Central Asia, 2017.
Quincey, D. J., Richardson, S. D., Luckman, A., Lucas, R. M., Reynolds, J. M., Hambrey, M. J. and Glasser, N. F.: Early recognition of glacial lake hazards in the Himalaya using remote sensing datasets, Glob. Planet. Change, 56, 137–152, 2007.
Richardson, S. D. and Reynolds, J. M.: An overview of glacial hazards in the Himalayas, Quat. Int., 65/66, 31–47, 2000a.
Richardson, S. D. and Reynolds, J. M.: Degradation of ice-cored moraine dams: implications for hazard development, in Debris-covered Glaciers. Proceedings of a workshop held at Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., edited by M. Nakawo, C. F. Raymond, and A. Fountain, pp. 187–198, IAHS Publication, Wallingford., 2000b.
Rounce, D. R., Byers, A. C., Byers, E. A. and Mckinney, D. C.: Brief communication: Observations of a glacier outburst flood from Lhotse Glacier, Everest area, Nepal, Cryosph., 11, 443–449, doi:10.5194/tc-11-443-2017, 2017.
Schwanghart, W., Worni, R., Huggel, C., Stoffel, M. and Korup, O.: Uncertainty in the Himalayan energy–water nexus: estimating regional exposure to glacial lake outburst floods, Environ. Res. Lett., 11(7), 74005, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/7/074005, 2016.
Suraj Mal, Simon K. Allen, Holger Frey, Christian Huggel, A. P. Dimri: Sector wise Assessment of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Danger in the Indian Himalayan Region, Mountain Research and Development, 41(1), R1-R12, 2021.
