Definition and classification system of glacial lake for inventory and hazards study

doi:10.1007/s11442-018-1467-z

Abstract

Abstract:

Glacial lakes are not only the important refresh water resources in alpine region, but also act as a trigger of many glacial hazards such as glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) and debris flow. Therefore, glacial lakes play an important role on the cryosphere, climate change and alpine hazards. In this paper, the issues of glacial lake were systematically discussed, then from the view of glacial lake inventory and glacial lake hazards study, the glacial lake was defined as natural water mainly supplied by modern glacial meltwater or formed in glacier moraine’s depression. Furthermore, a complete classification system of glacial lake was proposed based on its formation mechanism, topographic feature and geographical position. Glacial lakes were classified as 6 classes and 8 subclasses, i.e., glacial erosion lake (including cirque lake, glacial valley lake and other glacial erosion lake), moraine-dammed lake (including end moraine-dammed lake, lateral moraine-dammed lake and moraine thaw lake), ice-blocked lake (including advancing glacier-blocked lake and other glacier-blocked lake), supraglacial lake, subglacial lake and other glacial lake. Meanwhile, some corresponding features exhibiting on remote sensing image and quantitative indices for identifying different glacial lake types were proposed in order to build a universal and operational classification system of glacial lake.

Key words: glacial lake, glacier, definition, classification, inventory, hazard

Xiaojun YAO, Shiyin LIU, Lei HAN, Meiping SUN, Linlin ZHAO. Definition and classification system of glacial lake for inventory and hazards study[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2018, 28(2): 193-205.

Figures/Tables 8

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Class	Subclass	Description
Glacial erosion lake	Cirque lake	The lake in one cirque
	Glacial valley lake	The lake in U-shaped valley by glaciation
	Other glacial erosion lake	The lake formed by glacier erosion but not belonged to other classes of glacial lake
Moraine-dammed lake	End moraine-dammed lake	The lake between the end moraine ridge and glacier terminus
	Lateral moraine-dammed lake	The lake beside the lateral moraine ridge
	Moraine thaw lake	The lake on the moraine ridge
Ice-blocked lake	Advancing glacier-blocked lake	The lake blocked by advancing glacier
Ice-blocked lake	Other glacier-blocked lake	The lake with the dam being glacier ice
Supraglacial lake		The lake on the surface of glacier
Subglacial lake		The lake within the glacier or over the glacier bed
Other glacial lake		The lake blocked by landslide, avalanche, debris flow, etc.