Monitoring Changes in Batura Glacier Using Multi Temporal Satellite Data

摘要

The mountainous region of northern Pakistan is recognized as one of the longest glacier zone in the world. These glaciers are major source of water used for agricultural and hydro power generation purposes in the country. In addition, these glaciers are also climate change indicators. The factors controlling the physical and internal characteristics of glaciers are climatology, meteorology, topography, land cover type and the processes of metamorphism. This research aims to use the Landsat satellite data to monitor the Batura glacier in northern Pakistan. Batura is the fourth largest glacier in the region feeding river Hunza. Landsat data for the years 1972 to 2009 are used in this study. Image classification and Image processing techniques are applied to map the temporal changes in the Batura glacier. Furthermore, a regression is developed using temperature and precipitation data from weather stations in the region. Our results show that the area of the Batura glacier has been reduced since 1959. The results of this study further show that the spectral reflectance of snow is greatly affected by soot and dust contents. This study is found to be highly significant as it is a unique effort in the application of satellite remote sensing in Pakistan.