Extracting above-ground biomass in areas corresponding to FAO’s definition of “Forest” using open geospatial data: Results for ASEAN

In March 2007, the Leñas Glacier in the Central Andes of Argentina collapsed and released an ice avalanche that travelled a distance of 2 km. We analysed aerial photos, satellite images and field evidence to investigate the evolution of the glacier from the 1950s through the present day. A clear potential trigger of the collapse could not be identified from available meteorological and seismic data, nor could a significant change in glacier geometry leading to glacier instability be detected.

Four large drainages from glacial lakes occurred during 2006–2014 in the western Teskey Range, Kyrgyzstan. These floods caused extensive damage, killing people and livestock, as well as destroying property and crops. Due to their subsurface outlet, we refer to these short-lived glacial lakes as being of the tunnel-type, a type that drastically grows and drains over a few months.

We demonstrated an assessment of the sediments caused by a catastrophic avalanche, induced by the main shock of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in Nepal. A Japanese space-borne sensor, PALSAR-2, have a high potential for delineating the hazardous zone. Comparison of pre- and post-high-resolution topographic data estimates the avalanche-induced sediment volume as 5.51 × 10⁶ m³. High-resolution satellite imagery revealed that it has multiple layers of sediment with different physical properties.

Digital glacier inventories are invaluable data sets for revealing the characteristics of glacier distribution. However, quantitative comparison of present inventories was not performed. Here, we present a new inventory manually delineated from Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) imagery and compare it with existing inventories for the Bhutan Himalaya. Quantification of overlapping among available glacier outlines suggests consistency and recent improvement of their delineation quality.