Geospatial analysis and simulation of glacial avalanche hazard in hunza river basin

Abstract

Glacial avalanche hazard poses threat to human lives and damage settlements / infrastructures in alpine glaciers mountainous regions. A gigantic ice plus rock avalanche destroyed Gyari military camp in Siachen sector on April 2012 and buried 139 personals. The study focuses on geospatial analysis and simulation of Shishper glacial avalanche of Hunza basin. To simulate the potential glacial avalanche hazard to Hassan Abad settlements, an empirical process based Glacier Avalanche Model; Rapid Access Mass Movement Simulation (RAMMS) is utilized. The model encompasses avalanche release area and height for the execution of simulation. The model output of Shishper glacial avalanche resulted; a max pressure of 450 Kpa, max velocity of 40 m/s, and the max flow height of 80m, while the resulted surge extent output was 2500m. The potential hazardous Shishper glacial avalanche remains a continuous hazard to Hassan Abad of Hunza valley including Karakoram Highway and Frontier Works Organization (FWO) camp. The study has resulted in identifying the Upper Indus Bain (UIB) being more prone to glacial avalanche hazards because of host factors in general and the anthropogenic factor in particular.