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Using Unmanned Airborne Vehicles (UAV) for glacier monitoring in the Himalayas

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  • 11th Aug 2021
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Using Unmanned Airborne Vehicles (UAV) for glacier monitoring in the Himalayas - Photo obtained from the Project’s Final Report.

Summary

This project was implemented from May 2014 to January 2016 in the Langtang and the Everest regions in Nepal for improving the understanding of the contribution of large debris-covered glacier tongues to regional hydrology.

Glaciers in the Himalayas are of fundamental importance for upstream and downstream communities in the region. Through the seasonal melting of water, they feed some of the largest river systems in the world and provide water for human consumption, agriculture, energy production, and other industries. For decades, the scientific community has been working towards a better knowledge of the state and dynamics of such glaciers. However, debris-covered glaciers have remained relatively unstudied due to their difficult access for field studies. Despite the fact that satellite remote sensing can help in such cases, a lower image resolution and limited accessibility still causes certain challenges and limits the acquisition of quality data. Using Unmanned Airborne Vehicles (UAV) then represents an opportunity for addressing such issues by allowing the execution of fieldwork with reduced risks, and by providing higher resolution imagery.

The “Using Unmanned Airborne Vehicles (UAV) for glacier monitoring in the Himalayas” project consisted of three successful missions at the Lirung and Langtang glaciers in the Langtang region, and in the Changrinup glacier at the Everest region.

The project general was considered highly successful due to the effective work of the consortium formed by Utrecht University, ICIMOD, and FutureWater, as well as the informal collaboration with numerous other scientific groups and actors. Outcomes included the provision of highly accurate and detailed datasets, scientific papers, and a professional documentary, as well as awareness-raising on the relevance of this type of technology for other future scientific purposes.